Everything Has Changed
by missmandamargo
Summary: A collection of related and unrelated oneshots for Quitt week 2013.
1. Day 1: FantasySupernatural AU

**A/N:** So, this one is a little different, guys. I don't want to spoil too much for you, but if you get confused, I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have, and I'd welcome your feedback. Happy Quitt week! Enjoy!

* * *

'_cause all I know is we said hello_

_and your eyes look like coming home_

_all I know is a simple name, everything has changed_

Even though school has been in session for weeks now, Quinn is still homesick.

She feels like she must be the only one.

Everyone she meets is bubbling over with excitement – most of them have never been so far away from their homes and families, or for such a long time. It's still a big adventure for them.

It's not that she misses her parents – quite. Her parents are hard people, sometimes , to get along with; and Quinn admits, in her quiet moments, that being at home makes her feel _small, _somehow.

She feels small here, too, but in a different way. Small because she's a stranger, and there's so many people, and everything is sort of new and everyone seems to be having so much fun – except for her.

It doesn't help that her roommates happen to be friends from before the semester started. She shares a large dormitory with girls named Rachel, Santana, and Sugar (Quinn still thinks that is a ludicrous name, though it fits the girl perfectly), who are – in spite of their constant squabbling – like peas in a pod. Even when Santana is sneering and spitting judgments about the way Rachel braids her hair, or how Sugar wears too much big, gaudy jewelry, there's a familiarity between them that makes Quinn ache for the house she grew up in, and people who have known her for her entire life.

Maybe not her parents so much, but she does miss her older sister, Julia, who goes to a boarding school in Arizona. Quinn wanted to follow Jules there, but her mother – a paragon of wisdom – decided it would be better for Quinn's "development" to send her here. To the middle of nowhere. In Alaska.

Quinn doesn't mind the school – she knows that it's one of the most prestigious private academies in the country. She's heard that several of the teachers are legendary in some capacity or another. Her own dormitory regent, Sue Sylvester, coaches one of the most successful cheerleading squads in the nation. Quinn is also half in love with the old stonework of the school itself and its high, gothic archways – sometimes, when she's alone, she imagines that she's a princess from another time, walking the grounds of her castle on the way to one errand or another.

There are downsides, though, like the fact that she only has a velvet curtain separating her privacy from that of the other girls', and that she can always hear them giggling and whispering – or, in Santana's case, snapping and shouting – when she's trying to sleep. Oh, they're nice enough to her face, but Quinn gets the impression that they're always laughing at her. Even Rachel, the least imposing, smiles at Quinn like Quinn is a novelty, or an amusement. It rankles Quinn in a peculiar, unnamed way – it makes her biting and sharp, and overly prickly; she has watched Rachel recoil from her after something she's said, and almost immediately regretted it – but she can't help herself. Sometimes her own words surprise her, and she's left feeling like a venomous, hateful stranger has possessed her for a few seconds.

She hasn't made any friends with the older girls, either, and she rarely interacts with people outside of her own house.

Monday finds Quinn groaning and rolling into a sitting position, using the flat of her hand to press down her hair before sweeping back the russet-colored curtain. Directly opposite her, Sugar is already dressed and primping, powdering her nose behind a small, compact mirror. Quinn can't quite hide the grimace that takes over her face at the image of a huge pink bow in Sugar's tawny hair, but she bites her tongue. On the other side of her bed, she can hear Rachel singing in the tiny adjoining bathroom that the four of them share, and Quinn is grateful for the muffling effects of the thick granite walls that surround them. She stands up, wiggling her toes against the cold that seeps past her socks, and pulls a robe out of her wardrobe. Quinn hates the fact that they're cream, which isn't a particularly flattering shade on her, but she supposes that she has the next four years to get used to wearing them.

After a round of stretching, she finally dresses, and by now, Santana is awake. Even Sugar looks at Santana with wide, cautious eyes first thing in the morning – mostly because her hair takes on the likeness of a small, but enthusiastic, bush – and Quinn feels her shoulders tightening with tension. She finishes fastening the tiny, elaborate ruby and silver pin to the breast of her school robe before she turns around to face Santana.

"Not today, Fabray," Santana grumbles, without looking up. Her eyes are swollen and tired, but even beneath the messy frizz of her hair, Quinn can see that Santana is inherently beautiful. She has skin that stays a warm, golden tan – even here, in this dark, cold place – and hair, that when it behaves, is thick and rich, a color somewhere between true black and deep brown. Her eyes are slanted and catty, quick shadows, and her lips are soft and full. Quinn has seen dimples in each of Santana's cheeks when she smiles, which is the sort of smile that makes everyone around want to smile with it.

Quinn envies Santana her simple beauty – and her biting wit.

"It isn't my fault you slept all morning," Quinn replies, trying to remain calm. She can feel her heart start to thud in her ribcage.

Santana stands up mutely and begins walking towards the bathroom.

Quinn's muscles bunch. She sees Rachel out of the corner of her eye – she stands with her hands squeezed together, her lip caught between her teeth.

"Santana," Quinn's voice is louder, now. "It's my turn. Let me in the bathroom."

"Up yours." Santana grunts.

Quinn narrows her eyes, and then takes five long steps before she shoves Santana out of the way.

"Hey!" Santana is indignant. Quinn speeds up, slamming the door shut only inches in front of Santana's face. Quickly, she turns the lock, and she grins at the rush of triumph she feels at the outraged fist pounding against the door. "Let me in! I'm going to be late!"

"Not my problem," Quinn murmurs. She turns to face herself in the mirror.

She rides on the tiny wave of euphoria for exactly three minutes before she hears muttering outside the door –

"—don't know why she didn't just go in when she first woke up –"

" – takes so long to get dressed, anyway –"

" – it's like she _wants_ to piss me off."

Quinn's smile dies, and her heart sinks in her chest. She stares at herself in the mirror for a long moment before she sighs, and then turns towards the sink, gripping the marble handle of the faucet. When the water comes on, it's a gurgling rush, and it drowns out the voices of her roommates.

Her heart squeezes, and she remembers her ranch back in Lima, where she never had to fight for the bathroom, and her smiles were stolen from her by a grown man instead of girls who are, somehow, supposed to become her friends.

* * *

Quinn really _hates_ crazy Mrs. Schuester's potions class. Really. It was a subject she did well at in her old middle school – she won a prize, once, for her forgetfulness potion – but she finds herself struggling to do well in this one. She isn't sure why, exactly, except for the fact that Mrs. Schuester is a scatterbrained, manic teacher who doesn't take the time to explain much, and she rarely teaches from the book. Quinn is too stubborn to say anything about it, but she can tell that most of the other students find the lessons as nonsensical as she does.

She happens to have Rachel in this class, and they're the only two from Ignis house. Rachel spends most of the free time chattering about the other students and their houses – the big guy, Finn Hudson, is in Talamh, and Quinn feels like she practically knows his entire life due to Rachel's gossip. She squints at her textbook, looking up to the white board at the front of the class, where Mrs. Schuester is using her wand to animate the blue marker. Quinn doesn't recognize the formula being scrawled out. She suppresses a groan.

"That boy, Samuel Evans, he's in Senset," Rachel's voice is loud and animated, and Quinn wonders if she _really_ imagines that she's being discreet at all. "He keeps looking at you, Quinn. I think he has a crush."

Quinn raises an eyebrow and glances up – her gaze following Rachel's, to the table by the windows. Sam Evans is a tall, broad-shouldered boy with a messy flop of wheat-colored hair. He grins at her with big, soft lips, and Quinn feels herself respond – almost. He certainly _is_ good-looking, and his lapis eyes are definitely aimed at her.

Quinn is distracted, however, by the girl sitting just to the right of him. She has long, straight hair, the color of honeysuckle flowers; it falls to just above her elbows. She sits with her chin resting on the meat of her palm, while she stares outside – the sky is dank and gray, the thin sunlight barely illuminating the ice-encrusted valley below. At this angle, Quinn has a good view of her profile – she can make out the delicate line of her jaw, the sharp curve of her nose, the soft pink of her lips; Quinn even glimpses the spattering of golden freckles across the bridge of her cheekbones. There isn't a trace of a smile to be had on that face, and Quinn feels like – she feels that she knows, somehow, that the girl is intrinsically sad.

"Who's that?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Who?" Rachel's voice is loud and curious. "I already told you, tha –"

"No. Next to him."

Rachel pauses, frowning. "I don't know her name. Maybe his sister? Or his cousin?"

"What house is she in?"

Rachel leans forward, glancing around Quinn, and squints. "Senset, with Sam."

Quinn hums to herself.

"Thestera Schuester! You crazy old hag!"

Quinn whips around just in time to see the Care of Magical Creatures teacher barge in – her name is Roz Washington, but she lets the students call her _Miz Roz_ because Miss Washington makes her feel too much like "some old honky grade school teacher from the Midwest" – and she can't help the way shock transforms her features at the blatant confrontation.

"You got these kids doin' some kind of love potion! These children is _freshmen,_ you washed up old loon, and this is illegal –"

"I am not!" Mrs. Schuester's voice is shrill and defensive. Her giant eyes, which have always reminded Quinn somewhat of marbles, widen and take on a maniacal gleam – she gestures wildly, her navy robes billowing with movement. "Get out of my classroom, Rosalyn!"

"I _knew_ it!" The girl sitting directly behind Quinn shouts. She stands up, her face animated and excited – Quinn gets an impression of long, black hair and full cheeks plump in a smile – "This is amortentia!" She uses her hand to gesture to the tiny cauldron boiling in front of her.

"Shut _up_, Tina!" Mrs. Schuester shrieks.

"Ha!" Roz gloats. "You just wait 'til the principal hears about this –"

"You can't prove _anything!"_ Mrs. Schuester shouts. She leaps up from behind her desk and dashes wildly to the first row of two-person tables, using her arms to scatter the ingredients and boiling potion mixtures to the ground. Quickly, children fly backwards, and a wail of pain is heard above the general commotion – Quinn pulls Rachel backwards just as Mrs. Schuester gets to their desk.

"Not _my_ cauldron!" Rachel yells, and Quinn grunts with the effort to hold her back. "That was my mother's! No!"

Mrs. Schuester doesn't listen, and Rachel's cauldron – which is more elaborate than the average one, a silvery gray, with engraved stars and whimsical designs all along the outside – clatters to the ground.

"This child needs medical attention!" Roz hollers above the general din. Quinn releases Rachel and Rachel dashes forward, crouching down to cradle the upturned bowl. She cries out immediately and yanks her hands back, but Quinn can already see the redness on Rachel's fingertips.

"Rachel," Quinn squats next to her, trying to pull her robes close. The classroom is in complete chaos by now; Mrs. Schuester is making her way to the back of the class – and most students have jumped away from their tables, and the open flames – but the clatter of broken pewter, granite, and stone bowls can still be heard, along with someone's choked cries and too many voices raised in alarm and shock. "It isn't broken. See?"

Rachel has tears pooling in her large, expressive eyes. "It's chipped. She chipped the edge."

"It's okay." Quinn wants desperately to get out of the middle of the floor – she can't see what Mrs. Schuester is doing, now, but she can hear the clanging of equipment falling to the ground and other kids recoiling in shock and fear – but Rachel won't budge. "It'll still work. It's just a tiny chip."

"No," Rachel's voice trembles, and fat tears roll down her cheeks. "That was my _mom'_s. It was special."

"Oh." Quinn lets out a breath. "Maybe we can fix it."

Rachel tries to bite back a sob by pressing her fist to her mouth.

"Here,"

Quinn glances up at Tina, the girl who had contributed to this whole mess. She aims her wand at the upturned cauldron, and Rachel sniffles, staring at it. Quinn does, too – and she's a little perplexed that nothing happens immediately.

"You can pick it up now," Tina says, by way of explanation.

Tentatively, Rachel reaches out, and Quinn can tell that it's cool to the touch now. Quinn had expected Tina to fix it, but – well, this _is_ helpful. Somewhat.

"Sorry about that. I didn't know what would happen." Tina shrugs.

"It isn't your fault," Quinn says with a sigh. She pulls Rachel up. Rachel cradles the bowl against her chest, heedless of the mucky green fluid seeping into her cream robes, and her other hand hangs limply by her side. "This teacher is just crazy."

"Tell me about it." Tina tries to smile. "I'm Tina Cohen-Chang. Senset house."

"Senset?" Quinn's voice rises in curiosity. "Do you know -?"

Quinn turns to look for her, but the beautiful girl with the sad eyes is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Sam.

"My name is Rachel Berry," Rachel says forlornly. "My companion with no manners is named Quinn Fabray."

"Nice to meet you guys. Ignis, right?"

"How could you tell?" Rachel's voice cracks, and she pushes at the tears on her face impatiently.

"Oh, you can kind of always tell, with Ignis girls," Tina says, smiling mysteriously.

Quinn narrows her eyes. "What exactly does that –"

"It just means that our star quality is easily recognized," Rachel interrupts.

Quinn quirks a brow, and Tina snorts.

"Yeah, something like that. Hey, is your hand burned?"

Rachel nods, lifting her palm. Quinn flinches at the appearance of a blister, already forming, on the pads of two of her fingers.

"Better go see Madam Pillsbury," Tina advises. "She'll get you taken care of."

"Thanks again." Quinn says, though she isn't sure she should be thanking Tina.

"See you around," Tina smiles that strange smile at them as they walk away.

* * *

Altogether five of the students in their morning potions class were injured badly enough to be seen by Madam Pillsbury, and that, along with an unfortunate event in the herbology class with Mr. Tanaka and his sophomore students, meant that the infirmary was more than usually busy until just before lunch time. Quinn decided to stay with Rachel, for support – and Rachel didn't object. She sniffled and cried more about the chip in her cauldron, though Quinn couldn't get out more than a few words in regards to why it being Rachel's mother's was so important.

"Tsk tsk, you girls," Emma Pillsbury speaks with a funny little voice, and if Quinn didn't know any better, she would say that Madam Pillsbury is at least half nymph. She has a willowy look about her, somewhat insubstantial, with orangey-peach colored hair and large, watery green eyes. She's pretty enough, and Quinn has always liked her, but she was raised with an inherent mistrust of most non-human races. Something about the nurse puts her on edge. "Another victim of Terri Schuester?"

"Yes," Rachel sniffs. "She broke my cauldron, Miss Pillsbury."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Rachel," Madam Pillsbury pulls Rachel's hand away from her chest, inspecting her wound. By now the burn has turned the majority of Rachel's hand a bright, fluorescent red, and the blisters are swollen. "Your hand looks pretty bad, too."

Rachel doesn't seem to care much about the physical injury. She continues to look sadly at the tiny crack in the lip of the cauldron.

"What ever set her off, anyhow?" Madam Pillsbury says it so nonchalantly that it seems forced, and Quinn has never stopped being surprised by the level of intrigue going on at this school, even by the adults. "I heard something about a love potion?"

Quinn had nearly forgotten about that. "Oh, yes," Quinn frowns. "She had us making amortentia – which is a junior-level potion. She told us it was something silly.. de-swelling tonic, right?"

Rachel shrugs.

"I knew there was something not right about that class," Quinn huffs. "I knew there was a reason why it didn't make any sense."

Emma muffles a laugh. "Imagine, Terri Schuester trying to dupe a class of freshmen into making amortentia. How silly! How quaint!"

"Why would she do that?" In spite of her melancholy, Rachel had caught some excitement from the way the nurse was acting.

Emma chuckles, and uses her fingers to spread a thick white paste over the meat of Rachel's hand. "I imagine she hoped one of you would brew one good enough to be used."

"Isn't amortentia – isn't it illegal?" Quinn asks.

Miss Pillsbury nods slowly. "Some people don't care about the law, Quinn."

"But why? Who is she trying to use it on?"

Miss Pillsbury glances around quickly, before ducking her head. "Do either of you girls take classes with Mr. Williams?"

"The history of magic teacher? Yes." Quinn nods.

"Well, his name isn't actually Mr. Williams. It's William Schuester."

Rachel gasps dramatically.

"That's right," Emma nods. "They were married for many years. He actually divorced her about sixteen months ago, and when she refused to change her name, he started going by Williams. Will Williams, isn't that funny?"

"Hilarious." Quinn is still trying to wrap her head around the revelation.

"And Will has been quite busy in these last sixteen months," Emma continues, using a white cloth to wipe away the cream from Rachel's hand in slow, deliberate strokes. "I heard he had a fling with Miss Holliday –"

"No!" Rachel's eyes widen. "The kooky divination teacher?"

"Yes," Miss Pillsbury nods solemnly. "And not only that, but the transfiguration teacher too, and the quadpot coach."

"Coach _Beiste?_ No way," Quinn refutes.

"Yes way. Believe it." Madam Pillsbury nods once more, and with a final flick of her wrist, Rachel's hand is clean. There are no signs of a burn left – only the skin seems very tender. It gleams, shiny and pink, beneath the light of the oil lamps floating above their heads.

Quinn is watching Miss Pillsbury's face, though, and she gets an odd notion – "Have _you_ and Mr. Williams had a fling, Madam?"

"Oh, no, no," Emma tuts nervously. She quickly begins cleaning up the soiled cloths and leftover cream. "We're just friends, is all."

"But you think he's handsome," Rachel grins. "Who wouldn't?"

Quinn smiles, too. "Why don't you talk to him?"

"Me?" Miss Pillsbury squeaks. "He isn't interested in me. He has all those other girls –"

"Give yourself some credit," Quinn tells her. "You're lovely."

"You should try it," Rachel says, cocking her head. "You never know what might happen."

"I'm not sure," Emma bites her lip.

"Look, you can be brave. Like Quinn here – she's going to talk to the cute boy in our potions class." Rachel grins knowingly.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Stop it, Rachel."

"But why not?" Rachel shrugs, raising her eyebrows. "Why not just take a chance? You never know what might happen!"

Quinn's response is quick on her lips – a flat denial – but in the moment, she remembers the girl; the sunny, yellow-haired girl with the sad face and freckles. Something inside of her twists and twinges, and she swallows, her mouth suddenly dry.

"See?" Rachel's smile takes over her whole face.

Quinn blinks, shaking her head. She tries to clear her mind – tries to push the girl away, for now.

"What about you?" Quinn challenges. "When are you going to talk to Finn?"

"_Finn?_" Rachel makes a face. "I don't like Finn at all, Quinn."

"Then who? I hope it isn't that disgusting Avir boy, Noah –"

"Oh, Puck?" Rachel makes an even more appalled face. "No, not a bit."

"Well, spill the beans," Miss Pillsbury encourages with a smile.

Rachel goes suddenly shy, ducking her head. "It's a boy in Ignis."

Quinn thinks, her mind running over the handful in their grade – but before she can mention a name, Rachel says: "Jesse St. James."

"The _senior?_ Rachel!"

"Scandal!" Emma claps.

"Absolutely you cannot have a crush on a _senior,_ Rachel. What would your dads say?"

"Oh, I knew it would be a bad idea to tell you," Rachel sighs. "Please, just don't say anything to _Santana._ I don't want to hear her."

Quinn's laugh is short and sharp. "That makes two of us. I never want to hear Santana talk."

* * *

The meals at the Nerivik Academy of Magic might be Quinn's favorite thing so far. She wasn't allowed to eat anything that wasn't considered _healthy_ at home, because her parents lived in constant fear that she would burst into obesity at any moment. Just because she carried around a little baby fat into her thirteenth year –

Well, that isn't a problem here. Quinn is already imagining the BLT with french fries she's going to eat, and her mind is more on that than the constant drone of Rachel's gossip as they stand in line, waiting their turn at the food.

The caferia is a huge room, consisting of several small round tables scattered about and with booths lining the walls. It has a sky light – for all the benefit it does, because right now, at nearly noon, the sky is a watery gray. In a few weeks, Quinn knows, there will be hardly any light to speak of at all. She wonders if she'll start to miss the sun after a while. The tall, angled ceilings give the impression of airiness and space, though, without being overwhelmingly claustrophobic – like some of the classrooms located in the interior of the castle are.

Quinn carries her tray through the line, barely noticing the little House Elves who serve the food. They're cheerful and chipper, but Quinn hardly pays them any mind.

"I think it's so cute they let them out in the open like this," Santana's tone is dry and sarcastic. "I miss the old days, when they stayed out of sight and out of mind."

Sugar looks at Santana. "We were five when the House Elves Liberty Act passed. You don't remember the 'old days.'"

Santana shrugs. "Don't tell that to Zetsa. We don't let her leave the house."

Quinn looks up sharply at that.

Rachel's eyes are nervous, darting between Santana, Quinn, and Sugar. Santana's shoulders are bunched, but the expression on her face is defensive.

"It was a joke, guys," Santana says, holding her tray out. The House Elf puts a plate full of nachos on it.

Sugar tilts her head. "It's not very funny."

Rachel shakes her head at the offer of meatloaf, and instead indicates the plastic bowls of pre-prepared salad.

"It's a major violation to keep a House Elf without standard wage and hours," Quinn says.

"Jeeze. I didn't know you guys were such advocates for the lower species," Santana's voice is low and rough. "Even you, Fabray?"

Quinn is suddenly uncomfortable. Rachel is looking at her with soft, pained eyes, and Sugar's are direct and calculating. Santana doesn't look at her at all – instead she gazes away, as if this conversation is beneath her.

"I just know that it's illegal," Quinn says in a rush. "My father built the House Elves their own separate quarters on our property and he pays them weekly. Above the minimum wage."

"Saint Fabray," Santana's tone is full of irony.

"Let's go sit down." Sugar pulls at the crook of Santana's elbow. Quinn frowns, trailing behind them. She doesn't understand what just happened – how did that get turned around on her?

Of the three of them, Rachel is the most tolerable, and even though Quinn can barely stand her, she wishes – often – that it was just the two of them at times like this. Sugar and Santana come from very prominent wizarding families in New England, and their behavior often reflects that.

The Fabrays are wealthy, but they're what is considered _nouveau riche _by some of the more traditional circles – and though a few of Quinn's ancestors can be traced back to the Mayflower, they were never particularly influential until more recent generations. Santana claims distant relation to the royal family in Spain, and Sugar likewise states that she shares blood with the old Savoys of Italy.

Rachel, on the other hand, is the child of a pair of instrument merchants, and she never makes loaded references to her villa in Sicily or her summer home in Naples. Quinn doesn't understand how Santana and Sugar can be such easy friends with Rachel, but seem to despise her – Quinn, at least, comes from the same circles; and even if they had never met each other before the first day of class, Quinn had certainly _heard_ of Santana Lopez and Sugar Motta.

Quinn sighs, shoving a fry into her mouth.

"And she _broke_ my _cauldron!_" Rachel says emotionally, recounting the story from this morning. Quinn rolls her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel," Santana is so sincere it just might make Quinn gag.

"I can have my dad take care of her," Sugar offers.

Quinn grimaces. Why are they so sympathetic? Why are they so _nice_ to her?

"What is the big deal about that cauldron, anyway?" Quinn can't help how hard her voice is, or the way her eyebrows wrinkle.

"It was my _mom_'s," Rachel says, pointedly, as if she hadn't been saying that exact thing for the last three hours.

"Yes, you've made that clear," Quinn snaps. "That just means it was old, anyway."

Quinn isn't exactly _surprised _when Rachel stands up and hurries off, tears streaming down her face, but she is a little exasperated. And she feels bad. As insufferable as she is, Rachel really _is_ the closest thing to a friend Quinn has around here.

"Rachel, wait," Sugar scoots herself away from the table and jogs after Rachel.

"Listen up, blondie," Santana spits. Quinn doesn't know if she's ever seen Santana this angry – she has an almost electric glare in her eyes. "You leave Rachel alone about her mother, you hear me? She's allowed to be upset that something of hers got broken."

"Oh, whatever. If it had been me crying about my broken cauldron – even if it was my mom's – you would have laughed at me. What makes her any different?"

Santana stares at Quinn with cold, assessing eyes for a very long moment. Quinn has dealt with her share of catty, bitchy girls in her lifetime – being the daughter of Russell Fabray put plenty of them in her path – but she thinks Santana might be one of the most impressive ones she's ever encountered.

"Her mother is _dead_."

Quinn feels like she was doused in cold water.

"Oh, my god," Quinn whispers. "I didn't know."

"You knew that she has two dads!" Santana seethes. "What did you _think_happened?"

"I thought her parents got a divorce!" Quinn throws her hands up. "She never said anything! I'll apologize!"

"Don't bother," Santana shakes her head, pushing her tray away and standing up. "You'll probably make it worse."

Quinn feels both extremely heavy and strangely empty as she watches Santana walk away.

Her sandwich sits untouched on the plate in front of her. She isn't hungry any more. She stands up and stacks all of the abandoned trays, heading towards the trash bin.

It's only by the greatest luck that she spots her – the girl from her potions class. Quinn's head snaps in the girl's direction, her eyes widening; she feels her heart quicken behind her breast bone. She nearly stumbles into a sophmore Talamh before she shakes out of it, and even though she feels like her legs are tingly and insubstantial, she manages to make it to the trash without killing herself.

Quinn wants to talk to her – she can't explain the strange, magnetic pull she has towards this other girl – but she feels nervous and has no idea why. These are entirely new sensations for Quinn; never has she ever actually _wanted_ to seek out the company of another person (they usually come to her, after all), and she can't even begin to understand why her heart pulses erratically, and there's a fluttery, tense feeling in her stomach.

Still, it's as if she has no control over her own body, and she makes a beeline for the pretty girl who seems so inherently sad.

She sits at a table with Sam and another girl who seems vaguely familiar. Quinn only has eyes for her, though.

Once she arrives, she feels her tongue dry up, and suddenly she's forgotten every word of English she's ever learned. Her eyes go wide and her cheeks flush, because every one of them pause to look up at her. Quinn feels time crawl to a halt the moment her eyes meet with the girl from potions. Her heart thuds painfully, and her entire body throbs with – _what?_ Quinn doesn't know.

"Quinn, right?"

Quinn sucks in a breath at the sound of her name, blinking to clear the haze from her vision. She turns to look at the second girl, focusing on her for the first time. She has long, straight hair, the color of upturned earth, with sculpted, pointed features. She smiles at Quinn with open friendliness – and Quinn sees that her eyes are the strangest hue, caught somewhere between blue and purple.

"Y-yes," Quinn swallows once she finds her voice. "Yes, I'm Quinn."

"Right. We have transfiguration together."

Quinn has no idea what her name is.

"And you're in our potions class, right?" Sam asks. His grin is huge. Quinn blinks, because she isn't sure if his smile is serious or mocking due to the giant size of it.

"Yes," Quinn nods. "Th-that's why I came over here – to make sure you two are all right." Quinn turns to look pointedly at her target. She hasn't said anything yet. Quinn gets another jolt (like touching the tip of a _tsu-tsu_ tail) when their eyes connect. This girl has eyes the color of electricity, the same blue that's found at the quick of a candle flame, and Quinn knows that if she had the chance, she would spend hours looking at them.

"We're fine." Sam's mouth is so big that it's a little distracting. "Your friend got hurt, though, didn't she?"

Quinn nods mutely.

"Well, sit down," the second girl insists, gesturing to the chair next to Sam.

Quinn debates briefly before she slides into it. Being next to Sam and across from the nameless Transfiguration girl is not exactly where she wants to be, but it's progress.

"Did you do the assignment?"

It takes Quinn a long beat before she realizes the question was for her.

"O-oh. For Miss Corcoran's class? Yes," Quinn responds absently.

"Did you have any trouble with it?" she frowns, using a fork to cut into her lasagna. "I couldn't get them to switch correctly."

Quinn forces herself to try to focus on what this girl is talking about. The transfiguration lesson?

"My pattern switched just fine," Quinn says. The task was to take two objects made out of cloth – Quinn chose pillows – and switch just the fabric from one to the other.

"Oh."

Quinn looks more closely at her, and she tilts her head. "If you want, I can help you. I have a knack for transfiguration."

"Really?" The transformation on the girl's face is extreme. "I'd like that."

"Marley is a nerd," Sam provides with a secret smile. "She gets upset if she doesn't make straight As."

"I'm the same way," Quinn smiles, relieved to finally have her name.

"She's going to work herself to death some day."

Quinn feels a flood of unexpected warmth for the brunette.

"I can help you after classes tonight, if you want."

"Sure." Marley beams.

"Maybe you could help us with potions –" Sam says suggestively.

Quinn cocks her head, turning her gaze back towards the other blonde. She isn't paying much attention to the conversation at hand, instead staring upwards towards the skylight.

"I can't help you there," Quinn murmurs. "Nobody knows what they're doing in that class."

"Oh!" Sam stands up suddenly. "Let's get ice cream!"

"Okay," Marley agrees.

"No thanks," Quinn smiles, a little bemused.

"It's too cold for ice cream," the blonde says, a tad morosely.

Quinn squints. She isn't cold at all.

"Are you sure?" Sam says, his voice gentling. "I can get you an ice cream sandwich."

She shakes her head.

"We'll be back," Marley assures Quinn.

Quinn watches them for just a moment before she turns back to the other occupant of the table.

"You're in Senset, right?" Quinn says, mostly because she can't think of anything better.

The girl nods mutely.

"I'm in—"

"Ignis. I know." she sighs.

Quinn frowns. "How?"

"It's easy to spot Ignis girls," her voice is flat and monotone. She glances around the cafeteria and gestures. "You can pick them out easily."

Quinn turns to look, scanning the crowd. She sees the girls from her house, sure, but doesn't know what's different about them.

"I don't understand," Quinn tries to smile. "Do we have some kind of mark?"

The girl looks at her curiously, running her eyes over Quinn's face, before she shakes her head.

"It's your pin."

Quinn looks down, remembering that it's fastened to the lapel of her robes. She rubs a finger over it absently.

"Our dormitory regent gave it to us. Don't you have one?"

The girl nods. "Everyone has one. But nobody else wears them except Ignis girls."

Quinn raises her eyebrows. "Really? I didn't notice."

For the first time, the shadow of a smile flicks across the girl's face.

"I thought everyone wore theirs," Quinn admits, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. "I thought it was part of the wardrobe."

"It isn't," she seems a bit more cheerful now. "And they're usually ugly. Have you seen Avir's? What is that thing, anyway?"

"It's a garuda," Quinn answers. They all had to attend an entrance orientation that went over the history of the school and information on each of the four houses and their mascots before the semester started.

"It looks like a blue Pidgeot to me," the girl shrugs.

Quinn is baffled. "A what?"

She sighs, obviously disappointed. "You, too," she doesn't sound surprised.

Quinn feels more awkward and out of place now than she ever has in her life.

"I got you a snow cone anyway," Sam says, plopping down beside Quinn. He offers the blue treat to the girl, who takes it reluctantly.

"I got you an ice cream sandwich," Marley offers shyly. Quinn smiles, but it's only perfunctory. She's both grateful and disappointed to have them back.

"Thank you." Quinn begins to unwrap it.

"It's so funny that so much of our food is the same," she stares at her snow cone, not eating it. "But nothing else is."

Quinn frowns. "What?"

"Oh, she didn't tell you?" Sam smiles widely. "Britt here is a muggleborn."

Britt – that's her name? – gives Sam a look.

"Oh." Quinn blinks. "_Oh._"

"Tell her it doesn't matter," Marley says quickly. Her eyes are nervous and jittery, and Quinn finds herself responding.

"Of course it doesn't matter – nobody cares."

Britt sighs. "I care."

Quinn looks at her. "Didn't you get a letter when you were eleven?"

"Yes," Britt responds morosely.

Quinn can't understand how things about the wizarding world still baffle Britt, if she's been going to magic school since sixth grade.

"She isn't normally like this," Sam tells her. "She isn't so mopey back home."

"I see."

"We're cousins. I'm muggleborn, too," Sam offers.

"Nice." Quinn smiles. It isn't really polite to announce blood purity like that – but she isn't surprised that he would do it. Sometimes it takes muggleborns a little longer to catch on to polite etiquette. Quinn wonders if she's ever met a self-admitted muggleborn before.

She doesn't think so.

"I'm from Westerly Point," Marley offers.

Quinn smiles. Westerly Point is a wizarding city in New York.

"West Point is a military school," Britt interjects dully.

"Military?" Marley asks, curiously.

"It's like a group of aurors.. for the government.. doing.. stuff.." Sam tries to explain using his hands, but Marley stares at him blankly.

"There's a school for aurors? For muggle aurors?" Quinn asks.

Sam laughs. "No."

Quinn is perplexed.

"It's okay," Marley says, smiling. "You get used to it, mostly. I've been trying to have them explain to me what a slinky is for weeks now."

"Slinkies are awesome. I'm totally bringing you one back after Christmas," Sam says.

"I miss my Game Boy," Britt says, her eyes sad.

"Bring it back with you," Sam encourages her.

"Electronic things go _poof_," Britt sighs. "I brought a watch with me, just to see. It almost melted my arm off."

"Oh, right," Sam nods. "Well, I don't really miss it. Being here is better than any video game."

"It's _dark_," Britt's voice gets smaller with every word. "It's _cold_."

"I know, Britt." Sam sighs. "It'll get better."

She nods glumly.

"We have to get going," Marley says, glancing up. Several students are leaving the cafeteria. "C'mon, Sam, or we'll be late for defensive magic."

"All right." Sam stands up. "Catch ya later, Quinn."

"Goodbye." Quinn watches them go. She turns to Britt, trying to find something to say. "What's your next period?"

"Study hall," Britt responds.

Quinn smiles. "Me, too. Do you want to go to the library?"

Britt looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time. Quinn holds her breath, waiting for Britt to respond – she feels like she's strangling.

"Yes," Britt says, and her lips tug upwards, almost as if she wants to smile. "I'm Brittany Pierce, by the way. I don't know if you knew that."

"I'm Quinn Fabray." Quinn likes the sound of Brittany's name much better when it comes out of her own mouth – because her voice is soft, and sweet, and it makes Quinn feel like her head is full of vibrations.

"I've never been to the library," Brittany admits as they stand up and begin wading through the line of students leaving the cafeteria. "This will be fun."

"You haven't?" Quinn looks at her curiously. "How do you get your homework done, then?"

Brittany shrugs. "I think homework is more optional than necessary."

Quinn's laugh is startled. "That is absolutely not true."

"Don't try to force your beliefs on me," Brittany says seriously. "I'm resistant to indoctrination."

Quinn pauses, confused, before she finally laughs.

Brittany seems to smile without actually doing so, as if she's pleased that Quinn enjoyed her joke.

"Really, though," Quinn presses. "How can you get your homework done without going to the library?"

"I just do it," Brittany shrugs. "It works out for me."

Quinn has never met anyone so nonchalant about their grades. She can't imagine not caring to the degree that Brittany seems to not care.

"I have Sam and Marley check it," Brittany confesses, just as they round the last turn in the corridor leading to the library.

"They're good friends," Quinn smiles, but can't keep the wistfulness out of her voice.

"Yes, sometimes," Brittany agrees. She is immediately distracted by the huge double oak doors hanging in front of them. Quinn brushes past her and turns the soft, brassy doorknob, pushing it open silently.

The library is huge – easily the biggest room with doors on the entire premises. The librarian's desk is immediately to their right, and the room is filled with dark wood and bright, contrasting golden plates, with shelves of books reaching up towards the ceiling. Tables and chairs are scattered throughout the space, and further back are rows and rows of desks with reading lamps.

Quinn is smiling when she turns to look at Brittany, because she loves the way it smells in here – she loves the look and the texture, too.

Brittany looks disappointed.

"What's wrong?" Quinn asks.

"There are computers in libraries back home," Brittany's voice is forlorn.

"Computers? What is that?"

Brittany shrugs.

"It's nice in here," Quinn insists. She tugs gently at Brittany's elbow, pulling her into the room. Brittany looks bored – she lets Quinn drag her through the rows of tables and shelves of books without much resistance. Quinn dodges and weaves through the stacks, until she finally stops them in a corner that has a few love seats and a fireplace. "See?"

"It's nice," Brittany agrees, but doesn't seem very enthusiastic.

Quinn doesn't know why she feels so distraught at the idea of Brittany not loving the library.

Brittany moves forward and plops down, sitting in such a way as to take up the entire love seat. Quinn settles into a nearby armchair, reaching into her shoulder bag for her notebook. "Do you need to study for anything?"

"No," Brittany replies immediately, with a sigh.

Quinn frowns and bites her lip.

"Where are you from?"

"California." Brittany's voice is coated in longing. "It's always sunny there."

"Oh." Quinn nods. She thinks she's beginning to understand some of Brittany's listlessness. "What is your favorite thing about California?"

"Well, it's never cold," Brittany begins, wrinkling her nose. "Sometimes it's overcast or rainy, but not like it is here. We get a lot of sun. It's always pretty green. I never have to wear a coat."

Quinn nods, listening. She's been to California, but she likes letting Brittany talk about it.

"There's a lot of space, when you want it." Brittany scuffs the bottom of her shoes against the thick rug between them and the cold stone floors. "But when you _don't_ want it, there's people and buildings everywhere – lights and noise and movement." Brittany still doesn't smile, but her face takes on a strange quality – she seems more animated. She almost glows.

Quinn smiles, bemused, and nods. "I've been to muggle cities before."

"Have you ever been to L.A.?"

Quinn shakes her head.

"It's the greatest." Brittany lets out an airy hum. "It's really dirty and grungy and packed full of people, but nobody stands still there. It isn't quiet."

Quinn thinks that most wizarding folk avoid muggle cities like the plague for this reason – they don't understand the lights and noise, the movement, the jarring crush of bodies associated with muggles and electricity. Quinn has never spent much time inside of one. She also hasn't spent much time thinking about what wizarding towns and communities must seem like to muggleborns.

"I'd like to go, someday," Quinn says, and she is surprised that she means it.

Brittany's face changes in such a way that Quinn thinks she might actually smile – until she doesn't. But the corners of her eyes go soft, and her features relax, and it makes Quinn's heart stutter painfully behind her ribcage.

"I'll take you. I'll show you the city." Brittany looks past Quinn, as if she's seeing it etched into the fireplace. "And the flowers."

"The flowers?"

"Yes," Brittany nods. "They're my favorite part. I love them – they're wild and crazy, and grow everywhere. Nothing stops them, not even magic," Brittany's tone of voice is rueful, almost.

Quinn nods, and while looking at Brittany – her face glowing with dancing shadows, making it seem much more dramatic and miserable than it actually is – she begins to formulate a plan.

* * *

Quinn has nearly forgotten about Rachel and the incident at lunch by the time she makes it back to her dorm that night. She spent her evening classes scribbling furiously on parchment and flipping through several textbooks, nearly ignoring the teachers, and only participating when she was absolutely forced to. She made good on her promise to Marley after class, and then spent the evening meal with the three students from Senset. She likes Marley quite a bit – Marley is quirky and a little self-effacing, and _quiet,_ but she's sweet. Sam is a dork in a less adorable way, but Quinn is learning to tolerate him.

Quinn still thinks Brittany is beautiful and somehow tragic.

The atmosphere of the freshman quarter of Ignis house is chilly when Quinn finally slips inside. The common area is deserted, and she climbs the three steps up to the room she shares with the others in a kind of weighted silence.

It's too early for any of them to be sleeping except for Sugar, who routinely passes out much sooner than anyone else, but the room is dark. Quinn stills herself, listening, trying to determine if they are actually asleep or just pretending – but she doesn't hear anything. Carefully, Quinn picks her way down the center of the room. Santana's bed is directly across from hers, and Rachel sleeps across from Sugar – Quinn chews on her lip as she passes them, peering into the murky blackness.

After brushing her teeth and washing her face, Quinn tip-toes back towards her bed, wearing her pajamas and bundling her robes in a wad. She tosses them to the corner of the room, approximately at the hamper, and then goes to climb into her own bed.

She hesitates, for just a moment, frowning hard in the direction of Rachel's bed.

Finally, after an interminable moment, she creeps towards Rachel, holding her breath. After a moment, she peels back Rachel's curtain, and carefully sits on the mattress.

Rachel is very still, which makes Quinn think she isn't actually asleep. Rachel is a fitful sleeper, kicking and jostling the blankets the entire time. But Quinn watches the rhythm of her back, moving up and down, and it's so steady that Quinn thinks she might be wrong.

"Rachel?" Quinn breathes, so low that it's nearly inaudible. Rachel doesn't move.

Slowly, Quinn lies down next to Rachel. "I'm sorry, about your mom."

Rachel shifts, and Quinn knows that she is still awake.

"I _am_ sorry." Quinn whispers.

"I know." Rachel says weakly. "It's all right."

"It isn't." Quinn sighs. "I'm such a bitch."

Rachel is quiet for a long moment, and Quinn is left to study the back of Rachel's head. Her hair is long and thick, and Quinn has always wanted to touch it – she thinks about doing it, but doesn't.

"Sometimes you are." Rachel murmurs. "But you're really nice, too, Quinn, when you let yourself be."

Quinn lets out a huff of air. "Maybe so. I'll work on it."

Rachel rolls over, and Quinn can see the wetness on her cheeks. Rachel's eyes are swollen and her lips are a dark red, and Quinn can tell that she's been crying most of the day.

"I probably overreact about my mom. She's been gone for a long time." Rachel rolls her eyes.

"No," Quinn shakes her head. "It's important to remember her. It's okay to be upset."

Rachel nods, wiping at her face.

"Why is Santana asleep?" Quinn asks, frowning. Santana is usually the last one to fall asleep, staying up until Rachel gripes at her to turn the lights out and lay down.

"They both decided I needed to rest." Rachel shrugs, a watery smile on her face.

Quinn feels a tightness in her chest at Rachel's words, imagining that Sugar and Santana care for Rachel enough to put her to bed. Quinn closes her eyes against the flood of emotion, hot and scalding, behind her eyelids.

"But I'm not asleep!" Santana grumbles, loudly, from her bed.

Rachel lets out a short laugh.

Quinn chuckles, too.

"Get some sleep, Rachel. You had a long day." Quinn rolls into a sitting position, smoothing back her hair.

"You had a long day, too, Quinn," Rachel says, smiling a little oddly. "I noticed how you tried to take care of me in potions –"

Quinn just smiles, shaking her head. "You were emotional and upset. You don't remember it properly."

Rachel laughs, and this time it has a little more life to it. "All right, Quinn. I'll keep your secret."

Quinn's cheeks hurt from smiling when she finally crawls into her own bed. She falls asleep listening to Santana talk across the room to Rachel in the dark, and for the first time since she came to live here, she feels peaceful – almost like she's at home.

* * *

TBC Day 02: Crossover


	2. Day 2: Crossover

_all I knew this morning when I woke_

_is I know something now, know something now I didn't before_

Quinn waits until supper is over the next day before she seeks Brittany out.

Brittany seems a little surprised – well, her eyes widen – when Quinn grips her around her wrist and starts tugging her towards the front entrance.

"Where's the fire?" Brittany looks around quickly.

"What?" Quinn looks over her shoulder.

Brittany's face softens, in that not-quite-smiling way she has. "What's going on?"

"I have a surprise for you."

Brittany appears to be at the very least intrigued – so she starts keeping pace with Quinn, and they shove past crowds of rowdy students. When they finally reach the castle doors, Quinn kneels down behind a statue and pulls out two heavy coats, along with a basket.

"We're going outside?" Brittany's tone is a little glum. "It's so cold out there."

"I had Miss Hitchens charm these. They're really warm."

Brittany pulls the coat on, grimacing in skepticism. Quinn follows suit, pulling a hat and then gloves on. Finally, she adjusts a scarf over her face, and by the time she looks back at Brittany, there is little to distinguish her from a pile of laundry. It makes Quinn grin.

"Are you ready?"

Brittany just narrows her eyes.

Quinn pulls the heavy cast iron door, heaving backwards with her whole weight, until it finally screeches and begins sliding out of its frame. She tugs and tugs, noticing that people are stopping to pay attention to her, now – and by the time it's open wide enough for them to slip out, she's sweating inside of her clothes.

The day is dim and washed out; the sky is pallid and colorless, along with the entire landscape surrounding the castle. Everything is covered in a layer of ice and snow. Quinn can sense Brittany's hesitance, so she reaches down and grips Brittany's hand through their gloves.

Brittany looks down at their joined hands, and then back up at Quinn curiously, but Quinn doesn't pause. She begins trekking out across the cobblestone pathway, which is – mostly – clear. Quinn takes the path leading directly away from the castle, and finally they begin walking through the snow. It comes up to Quinn's ankles, and she's thankful for the waterproofing and the thick dragonskin hide on her footwear. Brittany steps lightly over the snow, making soft, tinkling _crunch_ noises when her slim boots break through the layer of snow. Quinn feels like she plods ungainly along beside Brittany, but she's determined – and before long they're heading away from the castle altogether.

Brittany's face is red beneath her scarf, where the wind touches her skin, and Quinn – every time she glances up – can tell that Brittany's curiosity is piqued by the way her candle-flame eyes glitter. It makes Quinn's blood rush with adrenaline, and she smiles to herself, full of nerves.

They pick their way delicately over a tiny stream, frozen over, now, but with the quiet rush of water beneath the ice still audible. Quinn keeps imagining them breaking the crust and falling through, but thankfully, that doesn't happen. They make it through the thin, sprawling wooded area before they finally reach their destination.

It's a small clearing with a cave jutting out of the rockface, and Quinn feels a rush of pride at the expression of pure pleasure on Brittany's face. It isn't a smile, quite, but it is a start.

"If we go inside we can make a fire," Quinn says, and Brittany nods excitedly.

Quinn has been here before, during the first few weeks when she felt the most ostracized and lonely. It's close enough to the castle that it isn't dangerous to visit, but secluded enough that not many other students know about it. Quinn has to crouch down to enter the cave, and Brittany has to crawl – but once they get past the initial lip, it opens up, broadening upwards. Quinn quickly reaches into her basket and pulls out a thick quilt, laying it out on the floor. Next, she pulls out two thermoses, and gestures for Brittany to settle in. Brittany begins unwrapping her scarf, and the miniscule snowflakes that had collected on her face begin to melt, causing her hair to frizz.

Quinn tugs off her own scarf, hat, and gloves, and settles back against the wall of the cave. She opens her thermos and takes a drink, passing the other one to Brittany.

"Hot chocolate?"

Quinn nods.

"What are we doing here, Quinn?"

"We have an hour or so, but there's something I want to show you."

"It isn't a ghost, is it?" Brittany's brows wrinkle. "Some Avis boys tried to lure me into the dungeons to show me a ghost. I don't really believe in them."

"What?" Quinn frowns. "No. No, it's something else."

"Okay." Brittany sits back, taking a long drink of her thermos.

They sit in silence for a while, before Quinn starts to talk:

"I grew up in Ohio." Quinn looks at her hands, studying her fingernails for a moment. "Just outside of a sleepy muggle town called Lima. I have an older sister." Quinn smiles, instinctively, at the memory of Julia.

"I have a little sister," Brittany says. "Her name is Hayden. She's nine."

Quinn imagines a smaller Brittany, and it makes her flush with the same kind of warmth she has when she thinks about Julia.

"Sisters are the greatest," Brittany adds, after seeing the smile on Quinn's face.

Quinn nods. "I think so, too. I miss Jules."

Brittany sighs. "I know what you mean."

"My father breeds arions – a type of magical racehorse." Quinn doesn't wait for Brittany to ask. "So I grew up around them, helping to take care of them. I used to feed the babies." Quinn grins, hugging her knees to her chest. "My favorite was named Talaus, and he was a special gift to me from my uncle. My uncle Rudolph – he's very nice." Quinn turns her head, resting it on her knees, to better see Brittany. It's getting dim in the cave, and she knows they'll have the light a fire soon. "He always brought me presents, for my birthday and Christmas, and sometimes just because. Talaus came from his own personal line, which very much irked my father."

Quinn still remembers her father's steely rage at the sight of the young colt on their ranch during his first few years. He never said anything directly – but Quinn could see that her father _hated_ Talaus. Russell had a fierce competition with his brother to breed the fastest, most sound racehorse, and Rudolph beat him almost every generation. Talaus was the offspring of Rudolph's top stallion, and Rudolph had plans to breed him when he came of age.

"I learned how to ride – really _ride_ – on Talaus. I knew how to ride a horse, but I didn't know how to ride a stallion before him. I didn't know what it felt like to really _fly_ before Talaus taught me.

"It isn't like flying on a broom, or anything else," Quinn says, because some people still ride brooms as a means of transportation. "Arions are like wind and fire in the same body. They're _alive._ They become _part_ of you when you ride them."

Brittany's eyes are large and focused as Quinn talks, and Quinn is somewhat flattered – but she remembers Talaus, and how it felt to cling to his back while letting him rush across the fields. She remembers the feeling of sunlight beating on her back, and the dusty smell of horse, sweat, and grass in her nose. Quinn remembers the thick pulse of Talaus beneath her palms on his neck, so quick, and Quinn could swear that it mimicked her own –

"He would have been the fastest racehorse to ever live." Quinn bites her lip, and the shadow of an old sadness creeps over her face. "He would have been great."

"What happened to him?" Brittany's voice is small, but it feels big in the silence.

"He died." Quinn shrugs. "My father said it was an accident, but –" she swallows. "I think it was deliberate. My father _hated_ Talaus. He hated the idea of Talaus growing up to beat out the arions in his own line. But I loved him." Quinn shrugs. "I didn't really care if he won races."

Brittany bites her lip, and her expression is so sad that it makes Quinn's lungs ache.

"It's okay. It was a long time ago."

"Why did you tell me that?"

Quinn takes a deep breath, and spends a moment thinking. "I wanted to tell you something about me. That story is important to me – I loved Talaus. I love my father, too, even though he's a hard man sometimes. I love my uncle Rudolph. We all love each other, and are trying to do the best, but Talaus paid for it the most of all. We all three wanted different things for him – my uncle used him to make my father angry and jealous. My father wanted him destroyed. I just wanted him to run and fly and be himself."

Brittany nods slowly, carefully. Quinn can tell that she's thinking – blue shadows move across her eyes, darkening them – before she finally says, "Are you saying that you're like Talaus, too?"

"No," Quinn smiles, a little sadly. "I'm saying that _you're_ like Talaus. You're here, Brittany, but you don't want to be here. You're here because other people made you come. You aren't happy." Quinn's smile fades. "I can tell that you feel like you're dying."

Brittany's eyes widen, briefly, before she looks away. Quinn remains silent, spending that time thinking about how much longer it would be. The conversation has turned heavy and sad, and Quinn hadn't wanted this, exactly.

"Everyone wants different things for me," Brittany agrees. "My parents – they barely understand this. Sam isn't technically muggleborn, he's a half-blood. His father was a wizard, but he died when Sam was a baby, and Sam grew up thinking he was a muggle. His younger siblings are muggles, his step-father is a muggle, his mother is a muggle – we didn't know anything different. But my aunt _knew_ about the wizarding world, so when I got my letter – I'm four months older than Sam – she was.. I don't know, excited. She was happy to help me. She helped to tell my parents about it, and she helped me go and get my first wand, my robes, everything. When Sam got his letter, she wasn't as thrilled – she just looked at him with this reserved look, like, 'I always knew.'" Brittany shakes her head. "My mom tends to listen to her about _everything._ My dad, he's a preacher – he has a harder time with it."

Quinn's eyebrows shoot upwards. She's heard of muggle _preachers._ They sound a bit scary.

"Not like you think. He's trying. He's definitely trying." Brittany sighs. "You should have seen the relief on his face when my younger brother, Tommy, turned eleven, and no letter for him. He was practically ecstatic."

"I'm sorry, Britt," Quinn murmurs.

"It's okay. I'm over it." Brittany shrugs. "But my aunt Linda convinced my parents to send me here, because it's the same school Uncle Shep went to. That's the entire reason I'm here right now: because my old uncle, who died before I ever remember meeting him, came here a lifetime ago." Brittany pounds the meat of her hand against the stone floor in frustration. "I got pamphlets from schools in Arizona, New Mexico, even Florida. I would have gone to any of them. Kansas, even. Anywhere but here."

"Your parents didn't want you to attend public school?" Quinn is genuinely curious about this. She knows that there's a system in place where every magical child can attend school free of charge, but they are day schools – the kids go home after classes are over. The series of private schools across the country are much more selective, and most of all, they require a yearly tuition.

"No." Brittany rolls her eyes. "I would have been fine with that, too. But when Sammy got in – well, they decided we had to go together."

Quinn nods. She wonders how different her life would be if she were with Julia right now, instead of Brittany.

"I hate the cold and the darkness. Everything here is _dead_." Brittany's voice is miserable. "It doesn't feel like magic, here. It feels.. haunted."

Quinn lets out a breath, and then nods. "I know why you feel that way. I understand. But the thing is, Britt, is that there _is_ magic here." Quinn smiles, briefly, before she shifts herself into a crouching position. "I'll show you."

Brittany gives her a shrewd look, but takes Quinn's hand anyway. Their skin is bare, fingers a little chilly, so the sensation is mixed; Quinn feels shock and a rush of excitement at the contact, but also a kind of disjointedness from the vague numbness in her knuckles. It causes her to squeeze Brittany's fingers tighter than she might have, just to reassure herself of the feeling.

They crawl out of the little cave, and Quinn is already grinning before they stand upright. Brittany takes a moment longer to adjust, but when she does –

Quinn turns her face, carefully, to look at Brittany's. Brittany's hair is falling in a rumpled cascade, past her chin and landing in wispy curls on her shoulders and back. Her eyes seem to practically glow in the semi-darkness, and finally – after a long, breathless moment – a smile breaks out over her features.

Quinn feels the air leave her body; the sight of Brittany smiling like that makes her breathless. She freezes, eyes open, in order to drink it in: the perfect split of Brittany's lips over her small, feline teeth; the way her cheeks swell on her face. Quinn wants to grab Brittany's face and bring it close to hers – for a wild moment she imagines crashing their lips together – but she snaps out of it when Brittany turns to look at her.

"The northern lights. I've heard about these." Brittany's tone is one of amazement. "I didn't think to look for them, though."

Quinn smiles, inhaling, and almost topples from the feeling of air returning to her lungs. She tilts her head back, to see the sky – it's a brilliant, luminous green, with bands of yellow and pink and blues streaking through it. It's close enough that Quinn feels like she could reach up and just touch it – and it's bright enough to cast shadows against the snow.

"This isn't magic, though," Brittany says, but her smile is still in place. "It's science."

"It's beautiful," Quinn still struggles with the effort to breathe. "Like you. " she pauses, feeling her cheeks burn, before she shakes her head, breaking eye contact with Brittany. "Like the school, too. Even Alaska – even it's beautiful, if you let it be. You don't have to die here, Brittany. Not if you don't want to." Quinn lifts her chin, looking upwards again. "Think of all the things you would miss out on, if you let yourself fade away by degrees."

Brittany takes a long moment to respond, and it makes Quinn's heart kick painfully, sending blood roaring through her body. She doesn't miss her hat or scarf, mostly because her own embarrassment keeps her plenty warm – but she is acutely aware of her hand, still wrapped around Brittany's, and how the brittle air has made it almost numb.

"Okay," Brittany says, and she's smiling (an easy, casual smile – one Quinn has never seen before) when Quinn meets her eyes. "I'll do it. I'll marry you. You don't have to keep asking."

"_Wh-what?!"_ Quinn chokes.

Brittany laughs, and it's the most wonderful sound Quinn has ever heard.

"I'm joking."

Quinn feels dizzy.

"I'm not joking about this, though," Brittany surprises Quinn by using two of her fingers on Quinn's chin, turning her head. Quinn has a moment to suck in a surprised breath before Brittany's lips are on hers.

Brittany is suddenly closer than she's ever been, and even with the wind blowing, Quinn can feel the heat coming off of her – she wonders if Brittany is just always warm, like the sun. Her smell reminds Quinn of wildflowers and sweet summer fruits, like peaches and watermelons. The scent of winter is on her, too, in her hair and skin – just like it's on Quinn; in the sky and the earth. Brittany's thick coat scrapes against Quinn's, making an abrasive sound between them, but Quinn thinks that she'll never grow tired of hearing it, because it means that this is actually happening, and Brittany has her arms wrapped around Quinn's waist, holding onto her.

Brittany's lips are soft and gentle, but her breath is hot and it makes Quinn's face heat up, too. At first it had felt like the dream of a kiss – because her lips were partly numb and frozen – but now that long heartbeats have passed, she feels the pillowy texture of them, just there. She can feel the pulse of Brittany's life underneath, and it reminds her of something vital – something like fire and flight and passion. Brittany's lips are smiling when she pushes her tongue out, and then into Quinn's mouth, bringing up one hand to cup Quinn behind her jaw. Quinn startles at the sudden chill beneath her hair, but in a moment she forgets – she forgets, because Brittany's tongue hot and thick, and her lips press firmly into Quinn's, and Quinn feels her body flare with a heat she didn't even know she was capable of. Quinn grips Brittany hard around the hips, her fingers digging into the fabric of Brittany's robes, while Brittany kisses her quietly and thoroughly.

When Brittany finally peels away, there's a gleam in her eye – it's playful and pleased, but something else, too. Something that causes a long, liquid tug in Quinn's body – she swears that something primeval in her is answering to an inaudible call from Brittany. It makes parts of her throb, and she isn't sure what it means.

"You taste like Starbucks mocha frappe," Brittany muses.

"What?" Quinn frowns. "It's probably just the hot chocolate, Brittany."

"Oh." Brittany tilts her head. "That's disappointing. I miss Starbucks." She grins. "I think that means I'll have to start kissing you at all times of the day, until I figure out what taste is actually _you._"

Quinn smiles, a little bashful, and suddenly aware of how close they are – still. "Well, if you must, you must."

Brittany laughs, and Quinn's heart swells.

"Thank you for bringing me here, and showing me this," Brittany says, giving Quinn a little squeeze. "I think it made a difference. I think it changed me."

Quinn smiles, looking between each of Brittany's eyes – sapphire prisms, like gemstones colored the same shade as the heart of the sea, cut through with veins the color of stardust and sunlight.

"I think it changed me, too."


	3. Day 3: Careers

_I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now  
I just wanna know you, know you, know you_

Quinn has never set up one of these booths before, but she's determined to do it right. She's lucky that her first stop is in this little town in nowhere, Ohio – that way, if she screws it up, nobody important will know about it.

Her schedule for college fairs is pretty rigid over the next six weeks, and most of them draw from a tri-state area. She isn't sure why the director of her department sent her to this singular school in what may as well be Egypt, but she isn't complaining. It could be worse – this could be her first time manning a college booth somewhere like L. A.

Quinn's hands twitch – they don't _tremble _or _shake_, for Christ's sake, this is just a bunch of teenagers – as she straightens the pamphlets on the edge of her table. She can still see the fold lines in the stiff dark blue table cloth, and it makes her frown. She uses the pads of her fingers to press on them, in an attempt to smooth them out, but she isn't successful.

She didn't set up the entire thing because her allotted space is rather small, so she kept it limited to three tables, draped with information on everything from dorm rooms to extracurriculars to tuition, but she feels like she should have put up the backdrop as well. She is busy staring worriedly at the blank space behind her tables when she hears another person enter the gymnasium, the door swishing open and closed.

Quinn turns just enough to look behind her, and is relieved to see another woman. So far, Quinn has been the only one to set up for the college fair – though she came approximately two hours early – and she worried that no other college representatives would come. Quinn toys with the string of pearls resting on her collarbones idly as the other woman glances over the room.

Quinn pegs her to be of an age with herself – probably no older than twenty-six. She has long, straight blonde hair up in a simple pony tail, and she wears a neat gray skirt suit. Quinn's eyebrows rise appreciatively when she spies the other girl's legs, long and lean and golden. As her gaze travels back upwards, she's jolted by the surprise of the woman looking straight at her, a knowing smirk on her face. It makes Quinn's heart race and her cheeks flush, and she turns away, fiddling with the papers on her table.

Quinn's eyebrows knit in a scowl – she can't _believe_ she got caught checking that woman out. She moves her palm down the short length of her own hair, smoothing it, and nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears a throat being cleared directly behind her.

"Hey,"

Quinn turns around, eyes wide, heart thudding in her ribcage. "H-hello," her voice is rough and stuttery, and she swallows.

"Is anyone using this space?" she indicates the area directly to Quinn's left.

Quinn shakes her head.

"Good." Quinn is met with that same self-sure smile, though it's even more affecting up close – she's drawn to the delicate shade of this woman's lips, a color too deep to really be pink but not dark enough to be red, and the flash of white teeth behind them. Something about the smile itself coupled with the natural cast of her features reminds Quinn of a cat; the spirited, cunning, _deadly_ kind. "I'm Brittany Pierce, by the way."

"Quinn," she takes a full second before she realizes that Brittany is offering her hand in a handshake. "Fabray." She almost forgot her own last name. Jesus.

Brittany's hands are long and narrow, without decoration; her skin is soft, though, and it returns the pressure of Quinn's handshake with ease. Quinn feels abstractly uneasy around this woman – maybe it's the fact that she doesn't feel the need to add much jewelry to her ensemble, besides the diamond studs in her ears, that her shoes are casual black pumps and her hair is pulled back without fuss or preamble; and yet, she still, somehow, manages to be absolutely _stunning._

Quinn isn't intimidated by attractive women, usually. Quinn enjoys women – all types of them – but she has a penchant for the ambitious, eager, successful kind; she has a kind of weakness for those who seem to be the center of their own gravitational field, pulling others in by the sheer force of their personalities. Those kinds of women are often lavish and beautiful, and Quinn always appreciates their desire for fine wine and expensive sheets, their pickiness in choosing clothing before going out, their exquisite taste in art and architecture, and how they spend time refining every minute detail. Quinn likes those little knacks in women –

Maybe _that's_ why this girl, this Brittany, puts her off. Brittany seems to be uncomplicated and direct, which is the opposite of the sort of person Quinn generally goes for. Still, she can't deny it – the way Brittany looks at her makes her belly tighten. Her gaze is straightforward and honest, but still playful; the shape of her eyes is slanted, and at first Quinn can't decide if they're blue or gray, with only the weak morning light streaming in from the windows high on the wall to illuminate them.

"Nice to meet you, Quinn," Brittany says slowly, an odd smirk on her face, as if she's trying out the taste of Quinn's name on her tongue. It makes an indescribable warmth flood through Quinn, and she ducks her head slightly, sliding away from the intense weight of Brittany's eyes on her.

"You, too." Quinn shifts, cupping an elbow with the palm of her hand, rubbing her fingers over one of her earrings. "Are you from around here?"

"No," Brittany almost laughs, as if the idea is comical. "Are you?"

"Not originally," Quinn glances around the room, forehead wrinkling. "My parents live here now, though."

Brittany nods. "What university are you representing?"

"Yale," Quinn answers, and this time it's immediate. She can't exactly feel herself swelling with pride – _quite._ But it's close. She knows that the average person usually finds it impressive that Quinn is on the payroll for Yale University.

"Nice." Brittany smiles, and this time it's appreciative. "Massachusetts Institute of Technology, myself."

Quinn can feel all the spit in her mouth dry up.

"MIT?" she wants to make sure.

"You've heard of it?" Brittany grins.

Quinn just nods.

"These kids must be something special to have Yale and MIT at their dinky college fair," Brittany surmises, taking another look about the gymnasium. It's run down, with chipped, fading paint and black scuff marks on the linoleum. "Well, I better get set up."

Quinn watches her head back towards the door, and she releases a breath.

_Now_ she knows what it is about Brittany that makes her uneasy –

Brittany is a representative of MIT, most likely an alumnus, and that means that she's brainy. Quinn has always felt uncomfortable around people with _that_ type of intelligence; the sort that she simply cannot understand, the kind that often stands out as being recognizably brilliant, overshadowing those with the more literary and artistic kind of minds.

Quinn knows that she's intelligent – she got into Yale, for crying out loud, and graduated with honors, top of her class. She has had the proof all of her life, and she knows she deserves to be where she is now. But that doesn't change the fact that she has little skill in mathematics, certainly not that above the average high school student, and that most sciences disinterest her – she has always maintained a perfect GPA, but she struggled and worked for extra credit in classes like physics, chemistry, and calculus.

Quinn was the girl who excelled in English and humanities, who loved writing poetry and discussing philosophy, psychology, and musical theory. Quinn had considered acting as a career before her current course, dabbled in creative writing, picked up different instruments and tried her hand at sculpting and painting.

She knows that her type of intelligence is just as valid as those with the scientific minds, but sometimes – _sometimes –_ she has moments of jealousy, flashes of insecurity, and an overall frustration with her own brain. Quinn would rather be a jack of all trades – she would like to be one of those people who can write romantic sonnets before breakfast and solve algebraic equations during lunch; play a symphony after dinner and discuss quantum physics before bed.

Quinn is a perfectionist, and she doesn't like not being the best at everything.

Brittany carries in her table beneath one arm, the other holding a briefcase close. Quinn sits in the aluminum folding chair and pretends not to watch as Brittany sets up, but she isn't very good at seeming disinterested. Brittany's movements are quick and efficient, but still somehow graceful, and Quinn feels something inside of her twist at the sight of the familiar gray-and-red cloth that Brittany drapes over her table. Quinn sighs internally as Brittany sets up some mechanical contraption – she should have predicted this – and then groans silently when she realizes it's a kind of projector. Brittany then sets up a screen, and within a few moments is using a tiny remote to power the device on. Quinn doesn't bother to look at the images that quickly click through, because she knows she'll have the better part of the next four hours to do it.

The rest of Brittany's display is fairly simple; a stack of papers, and a bowl full of plastic USB thumb drives. Quinn thinks that's a little bit over the top – MIT is too good to print out informational packets, now? – but the sleek simplicity of it_ is_ appealing.

The Yale table feels a bit outdated and stodgy beside the MIT one.

Quinn feels relief flood through her when the double doors open again, this time to a trickle of other adults, who begin to set up their own booths without much hesitation. She watches them, and by degrees realizes that these schools – local ones, for the most part – have plain displays, too.

She checks her watch, and realizes the fair will be opening in ten minutes. A quick scan of her table reassures her that she's ready, so she crosses her arms and switches her legs.

"Hey, Quinn," Brittany says her name so easily and with such intimacy that Quinn imagines they could have been lifelong friends – it makes her spine straighten and the hair on the back of her neck raise up, tingling, sending a wave of goosebumps down her forearms.

"Yes?"

Brittany is still smiling that jovial, amused smile – the one that makes Quinn feel like Brittany has a grand secret, or that she is laughing at some private joke – and it causes the muscles in Quinn's back to bunch and tighten.

"You know the area, right? Your parents live around here?"

"Yes," Quinn answers reluctantly.

"After this, do you want to grab lunch?" Brittany's grin widens. "I'm starving, and I don't know anywhere to eat."

Quinn is thunderstruck for a moment, caught completely off-guard – she would never have imagined this kind of situation, not even close. "Uh,"

Brittany cocks her head, amused, and Quinn's throat works to swallow.

"Don't make me beg," Brittany jokes.

Quinn can feel her face redden. "Sure. That's fine. Yes."

This time, Brittany's smile is slower – somehow more sensual. "Good."

Quinn's abdomen knots, and she hugs herself tighter, trying to regain some control over her own body.

What is the _matter _with her?

Before Quinn can answer the question, the doors burst open with a hollow bang, and scores of students come flooding in.

* * *

Quinn is more exhausted than she expected to be, and while re-packing the remainder of her pamphlets she snaps at a dumpy middle-aged secretary with big glasses – the other woman looks positively stricken, and it immediately makes Quinn feel bad. She sighs, turning to apologize, but instead of the woman with the unfortunate floral skirt, she's met by Brittany's perpetual smile.

"Look out, she's got claws."

Quinn pauses to look over Brittany's face, but finally relents with a smile. "I'm ready for a nap."

"Not me." Brittany grins, lifting her arms above her head. "I want tequila."

Quinn quirks an eyebrow, glancing at her watch. "It's barely noon."

"Perfect party time. Let's get day drunk, Quinn."

Quinn laughs and is surprised that she did so.

Brittany seems pleased to hear it, and the sort of smile she wears now seems more genuine – happy, even.

"Where's the best bar in town? No strippers, please."

Quinn laughs again, and this time she feels something inside of her loosen – whatever fist had been clenched inside of her since this morning finally loses its grip, and she can _breathe_. Suddenly, Brittany isn't so intimidating – she's just a friendly, good-looking woman, who has the ability to make Quinn laugh. There are many worse things to be, Quinn thinks, than the person at the receiving end of Brittany's attentions.

"I think I know just the place."

* * *

"Somehow, I didn't think you'd have _this_ in mind," Brittany says skeptically, looking around the hotel bar and restaurant area. "Unless you intend to immediately take me upstairs and have your way with me," she offers Quinn a small grin, "then this would be pretty efficient of you."

Quinn does that thing that's half a cough, half a chuckle, at Brittany's words, and then smooths down her hair nervously. "No, I – uh." She clears her throat. "You asked for the best bar in town. All rest of them are run down honky tonks."

Brittany laughs, and Quinn leads them both over to a booth tucked in the corner. "Where are we, that the best bar is inside of the Holiday Inn?"

Quinn shrugs. "Lima, Ohio."

"Pretty lame."

Quinn smiles, glancing over the menu, and places her order when the hotel waitress comes to take it. She is a bit surprised that Brittany orders a long island iced tea – but Brittany just flashes her a wink, not missing a beat when the waitress asks for her I.D.

"You're quite the party animal."

Brittany nods. "In college I took bets on how many keggers I could make it through without getting liver damage."

Quinn laughs. "You weren't some geeky scientist nerd, curled up in your dorm, reading sci-fi novels?"

Brittany cocks her head, bemused. "What would make you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Quinn shrugs. "MIT?"

Brittany pauses a moment, her face suddenly still, for - what might be - the first time since Quinn met her – except for her eyes, which scan over Quinn with a kind of assessing calculation in them. Quinn imagines that she can almost _feel_ them making their way over her skin.

"You're a very pretty girl, aren't you?" Brittany says, smiling, but the quality to it is somehow off – shifted, different. Quinn feels tension coil deep in her gut, near her spine, tightening her muscles. "You spent most of your childhood feeling ugly, though."

Quinn's gaze sharpens, and she feels like everything goes into hyper focus – she stares at Brittany, her face frozen, while a dim buzzing noise sounds in her ears.

"You were probably a cheerleading captain, something like that," Brittany's smile doesn't waver, and her voice is low, intimate – but it makes Quinn's spine go rigid. "You were homecoming queen and girlfriend of the star quarterback, but you never really felt _pretty_, did you?

"Were you in a sorority at Yale? When did you finally stop caring about it?"

Quinn is silent for a long moment, before something inside of her snaps – she narrows her eyes at Brittany. "You think you're very clever, but that wasn't even hard to do. You just painted the broadest stereotype you could imagine and applied it to me."

"But I was right," It isn't a question. Brittany grins, lifting her chin.

Quinn glares at her. "You don't _know_ me."

"You don't know me, either, Quinn," Brittany leans forward, and now her face is serious and intense – Quinn thinks that her eyes alone must have a palpable force behind them, and she has to repress a shiver. "Do you see how making assumptions can be – ah, insulting?"

Quinn is irritated for a nameless, abstract reason; she knows that Brittany is right, but it pisses her off. She's still frowning when the waitress comes back, placing her salad in front of her, and serving Brittany up a philly cheesesteak.

"I was just trying to joke with you," Quinn mutters.

Brittany blinks, tilting her head, and then she laughs. "You know something? You're right. I shouldn't have –" she shakes her head, still laughing, and Quinn looks at her with a perplexed expression. "I overreacted to that. I'm sorry. I've been doing that my whole life – I get a little prickly about stereotypes."

Quinn watches Brittany, who seems fully amused with herself, and eventually finds the knot of dark anger inside of her loosening. Finally, she smiles, shrugs, and takes a sip of water. "I've been doing it my whole life, too," Quinn admits. "Stereotyping people."

Brittany nods, lifts her glass in a mock toast, "To fucking up repeatedly, no matter how often you tell yourself you'll stop doing it."

Quinn laughs quietly, gestures with her water. "To being able to own up to it, at least."

Brittany smiles and takes a long sip of her drink.

"What are you thinking?"

Quinn surprises herself by asking it, but she's been doing things all day that are strange for her. Brittany takes her time responding, looking over the rim of her glass. Her eyes are slanted and they glint, even in the dim light.

"About taking you upstairs. The way your face would look, during.." Brittany smiles, trails off. Quinn feels the heat inside of her flare, from a simmering ember to an inferno – turning everything inside of her white hot and blinding.

"Well, what's stopping you?" Quinn can't believe her own boldness, but when Brittany's gaze flies to hers, she meets it without flinching. She knows that the color in her cheeks is obvious, but she can't help but smile at the predatory gleam in Brittany's eyes.

"Okay, princess. If you're sure."

Quinn can hear the blood roaring in her ears, but she never takes her eyes away from Brittany. She stands up, shouldering her bag, and digs through her purse to pull out a few bills to lie on the table beside her mostly untouched salad.

Brittany is smiling a different smile when she takes Quinn's hand – which is, of course, completely steady, now – and it makes Quinn feel special, almost, as if it's a smile meant only for her.

* * *

The next day, when Quinn is collecting her clothes from their hotel room and Brittany is fixing her hair in the mirror above the sink, Brittany says, "When can I see you again?"

And Quinn thinks – she doesn't know this girl, not really. All she knows about Brittany is the different shades of her smiles, and how her eyes are like paperweights, pinning down her soul; the way her hands move in the dark, the way her skin tastes.

It isn't much. But it feels like something more. Something important.

Quinn pauses, running her thumb over the seam of her discarded shirt, before she turns to look at Brittany. "My schedule will take me to New Orleans in a couple of weeks."

Brittany grins, slowly. "It will be hard to compete with Tulane. They have the home team advantage."

Quinn returns Brittany's grin with one of her own – she likes the look of Brittany in nothing but a long t-shirt – before she stuffs her clothes back in her suitcase. "Somehow, I think Tulane might to hold on to its shirt, with both Yale and MIT coming to town."

Brittany hums, nodding, and runs the pads of her fingers along the base of Quinn's spine. "I'll see you in New Orleans, Quinn."

Quinn looks up into Brittany's eyes, and finds herself smiling (again – she just can't seem to stop, when Brittany is around).

"I can't wait."


	4. Day 4: OT3

**A/N: **This was a collaborative work with my dear friend, Cait, who also writes beautiful fanfiction as ckeller48. Go read her stories and follow her on tumblr - you won't be disappointed! I couldn't have done this without her, and I'm very grateful and flattered that she agreed to work with me on this.

Enjoy!

* * *

_all I know is a new found grace_

_all my days, I'll know your face_

_all I know since yesterday is everything has changed_

Brittany won the lottery.

No, really. She won the lottery.

She got the numbers from Lord Tubbington, and she tells everyone that. Really, if a cat could legally inherit a billion dollars, he'd be the richest cat in the world.

With Brittany as his human, though, he still does pretty well.

She isn't shy about it – she went a little crazy at first. She spent millions of dollars on things that she can't even remember now; she sort of, hazily, recalls a pool filled with strawberry jello, and attempting to hire Aerosmith to sing at a party once. Those first few years burned her out pretty quickly, and she bought houses in Bel Aire and Manhattan just to throw parties in them once and never come back again._ Frivolous_ is an understatement for her behavior.

Her sister – old enough, by this time, to be someone Brittany could take at least half-seriously – shook some sense into her when she was edging in on her twenty-eighth birthday. "Stop spending your money, Brittany. You're going to go broke."

"No way," Brittany was really tan, back then, from commuting to Bermuda every other weekend. "I have like, a billion dollars. I'm set for life."

"Not the way you're going, you're not," Audrey said. She has darker hair, like Brittany's father, and she always reminds Brittany of their stern grandmother on the Pierce side. "You've blown through half of it already."

Brittany almost choked. "Half? Half? How?"

Audrey rolled her eyes. She had a bang cut that wasn't flattering, but Brittany had spent so much of their childhood tormenting Audrey that she tried to make up for it by not being so honest now. Sometimes it was really hard. Like when Audrey was glaring at her with her gray-green eyes and giving her the 'you're-so-irresponsible' look.

"I don't want to recount your reckless spending, but just trust me. In less than five years, you've spent.. an unholy amount of money. You need to invest," Audrey held up a hand, palm outward, to halt Brittany's flood of words. "You need to buy stocks and real estate and, I don't know, make yourself a _budget._ Sell some of your cars and houses, stop visiting Tahiti so often. You're insane, Brittany, and not in the normal way."

Brittany spent time thinking about it, and she realized that Audrey was right.

"And go back to school," Audrey looked mildly exasperated with Brittany. "You're too smart to be living like this."

Brittany, then, as always, had a flush of warmth for her baby sister – the one who never saw Brittany as anything less than a genius, or anything more than her goofy, whimsical self – and she took her advice.

Brittany went to hire a financial advisor from the most reputable and prestigious companies in the nation, and that's when she ran into Mike Chang.

He was a junior partner at the time, and although Brittany certainly had enough money to be handled by one of the more elite members of Chase, Chang, & Blackstock Financial Services, they felt she would do better with someone her own age. It was just a happy coincidence that they were old high school friends, who danced and sang together through countless glee club meetings and competitions.

"It's so good to see you!" Mike was taller, now, and just as slim as he was as a teenager – but Brittany could tell he didn't dance much, anymore. It was in the way he moved, with less natural grace; and Brittany was sad, suddenly, to be around her old friend, who was so different, now, almost a decade later. "How have you been?"

Brittany shrugged. "Rich. Spending my money. I need some help."

Mike smiled, and it was the same old Mike smile from before. "You came to the right place."

Brittany signed a lot of papers, and she told Mike about her life since high school. There wasn't a lot to tell – she didn't do much after she graduated. Took a few semesters at the community college and then dropped out when she got too bored. She spent the next few years doing a whopping nothing – she spent a summer in Europe because her grandparents indulged her – but she was living in her old bedroom at her parents' house when she picked up that Powerball ticket.

Mike's story was equally short, and just as sad, and it made Brittany realize that the idealism they all possessed as children was a myth. Brittany thinks fondly of Mr. Schue and the choir room, but in that moment she was a little bit bitter – she had been promised that her dreams would come true. And though she will never have to worry about money for herself or her family, she isn't – well, she isn't particularly _happy_, is she?

Mike had launched his career in professional dancing, and for a few years, he did well. Then he fell and badly hurt his back – another reason why his movements were slow and stilted – and he was out of work, and under-qualified for any kind of other profession. His father helped him take the right fast-track courses so he could join with their financial advisory company, and, well, here he is.

Brittany smiled briefly. "Do you ever hear from Tina?"

Mike looked at her, and then shook his head. He wore his hair flat, now, and Brittany missed the days of his gelled up 'do. "Last I heard, she'd been cast in a Broadway play."

"Really?" Brittany's entire chest filled with warmth. "Good for her. Good for Tina."

Mike's smile was more reserved, but he nodded.

"What about Santana?"

Brittany didn't feel anything, any more, when she heard Santana's name. "What about her?"

"Have you kept in touch?"

"No."

Mike looked like he wanted to ask questions, but he didn't.

Brittany sighed. "She produces music now. She got hired on with a record label. She loves it."

Mike's eyes widened. "Well.. that's incredible."

"We're still Facebook friends. So I know stuff sometimes."

Brittany was relieved when he didn't ask any more questions about Santana. It's just – yes, Brittany cares about Santana, and she always will; they shared more than just a childhood, and Brittany's heart will never forget that – but she's been dealing with questions about Santana almost incessantly over the last decade, and she's _tired_ of them.

By the end of the evening, Brittany had a monthly allowance – for spending. Mike had already taken care of expenses such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. It was a small amount, compared to what she was used to having access to, but she knew it was more than some people make in a whole year.

"We have a spending plan," Mike had told her. "Follow the budget. I'll take care of your expenses, but you need to try to make that last. In a few months, we'll have some of your excess houses sold, and in a few years, you'll see a return on these investments. But until then." His smile was warm and affectionate.

"Thanks, Mike. Don't forget to give yourself a tip."

Brittany was on her way out when Mike stopped her. "Are you going to the reunion?"

Brittany shook her head. "Why would I?"

"Well, I know everyone would like to see you. They've missed you, the last five years."

"I miss them, too," Brittany said, a little sadly. "But I could never tell if they _really_ missed me, after I got the money, or if they just wanted some of it. I gave Finn and Puck some money last time I saw them, and then I found out they were using it to buy condoms and whipped cream." Brittany rolled her eyes.

"That doesn't surprise me." Mike's tone was warm and inviting. "But Marley will be there, and Sugar, and Tina. And Quinn."

Brittany took a moment to think it over, before she shrugged. "Only if you'll take me."

Mike looked pleased at this. "It's a date."

* * *

Brittany never expected to walk away from that ten year reunion with Quinn on her arm (figuratively), but that's how it happened. She saw Quinn sitting alone at a table, and Brittany zeroed in on her – they had been close, once, a lifetime ago. Brittany had been both disappointed and relieved to not see hide nor hair of Santana, but after the initial awkwardness wore off, most of the Glee kids were back to their old selves. Sugar was in the jewelry industry – and it showed. Marley was an English teacher in Chicago. Tina was, indeed, doing Broadway, and so was Rachel – she wasn't able to make it. Brittany missed seeing all of these people who had been, at one point, the main focus of her life.

Artie was doing well, producing and directing films. Brittany thought he would become famous someday. Mercedes sang gospel music, and she was gaining a name for herself. Finn owned Hummel Tires and Lube, and Puck was his co-manager. Brittany asked about Kurt, who didn't show. Kurt had a family, now, with a boy he met at NYADA named Jason, and his daughter had the flu.

Brittany's smile was big when she imagined Kurt with a baby.

Blaine came, though, and so did Joe and Jake. They weren't kids who graduated with Brittany's class, but they came all the same. Brittany wondered if this was really a McKinley reunion, or a glee club reunion.

"Looking for Sam?" Quinn had asked, when Brittany's eyes scanned the room. The old gymnasium felt small and claustrophobic to Brittany.

"No." Brittany shook her head.

"You don't miss him?" Quinn was quieter, now, than she had been in high school. She let her hair grow to its natural shade, which was a medium golden brown, with a lighter glimmer of honey dancing through it. Quinn's hair was long, now, too, past the nape of her neck, and Brittany thought that Quinn looked older – but that it definitely suited her. Brittany had missed Quinn's quiet voice and her piercing, fractured eyes.

"Sam was a good friend to me. I love him. I do miss him, sometimes."

Quinn nods. "I do, too. I miss all of you."

Brittany had smiled at that. "What are your plans next week?"

"Next weekend? Do you want to get brunch or something?"

Brittany shrugged. "Sure. But I meant the whole week. Are you free?"

Quinn's eyes grew oddly round. "Why? Are you planning a kidnapping?"

"No," Brittany suppressed a laugh. "I was thinking the Bahamas."

Quinn took a long moment to respond with, "No way."

Brittany laughed, shrugging. "Sure. Or if you think you'll be too hot, we can go somewhere else. The Netherlands or Australia or Greece. You pick."

"I couldn't, Brittany. I just couldn't."

"No, really," Brittany was still smiling. She enjoyed this game. "Anywhere you want, we'll go for a week. Consider it pay back for all the years I copied your math homework."

Quinn was reluctant, and she fought valiantly, but in the end, Brittany won.

She always does.

That was four years ago, and Quinn never did go home after their week in Israel. Brittany prefers tropical climes for vacations, but she has to admit – even now – that Israel had been a once-in-a-lifetime kinda trip.

It might have something to do with all of the hot, humid nights they spent on the roof of their bed and breakfast, alone in the world but also dramatically exposed. Brittany still gets chills when she thinks about it, and remembers the way Quinn looked at her the first time they kissed – and the flood of hot impatience that followed, almost as if Quinn were whispering _finally, finally, I've been waiting so long for this, and now I finally have it – have _you – and Quinn fell right into Brittany's life, and her heart, as if there had always been a special Quinn-shaped hole in it all along.

Now that they're over thirty, Brittany feels a little bit like her skin is stretched too tight – she doesn't think it's the impending birthday, because, let's be real, her body is still rockin' – as if her life is too boring, a little stale. She wants to do something different. She wants to move forward, onwards, onto the next great adventure.

"What do you think about kids?" Brittany asks Quinn one night over lobster.

Quinn had been staring down at the slim iPad on the dinner table, taking in the news (or something equally boring and adult), when Brittany asked. She looks up slowly, blinking the clouds out of her eyes, which always makes Brittany smile – she loves being able literally _see _Quinn make herself focus. When they were younger and two-thirds of the most elite clique of girls, Brittany would get excited just from watching _that look_ cross Quinn's face – the one that meant somebody, somewhere, was going to have their ass handed to them. Now that Quinn is older and a little more soft around the edges, it's usually an expression that crosses her face when she is thinking very hard about something – which always makes Brittany want to kiss her silly – and she is half tempted to get up and do so before Quinn answers.

"Kids? Is this a new rock band I've never heard of?"

Brittany can tell Quinn is being coy, which is a little unsettling.

"I want to have a baby."

Quinn looks slightly nauseous.

"Come _on,_ Quinn. We're getting old. What are we waiting for?"

"This isn't some mid-life crisis, is it?" Quinn's brows wrinkle with worry.

"No. I don't think so." Brittany shrugs. "I know that you want to have kids, too."

"Yes," Quinn nods. "But now? I don't know, Britt –"

"Honey, I love you. I'm happy. I'm ready to start a family with you. Do you feel the same way?"

Quinn bites her lip, and her expression is full of so many mixed emotions that, for a brief, wild moment Brittany fears Quinn will answer _no_ – but then she nods, exhaling loudly. "Yes, of course I do, Brittany."

Brittany's muscles unwind slightly. "So let's do it. Let's make a baby."

Quinn takes a few moments before she finally nods. "Okay, Britt. But let's not rush into this – it needs a lot of research."

Brittany laughs, standing up abruptly, and Quinn has her hands up defensively when Brittany sprints to her side of the table. In one swift, sure motion, she has Quinn out of her chair and caught up in her arms, and Quinn is laughing and giggling when Brittany spins her in wild circles. "Wait, Britt! Dinner-!"

Brittany ignores her on the short dash through their house, heedlessly knocking into side-tables and disturbing pictures hanging on the walls.

"We can start trying now," Brittany assures Quinn, right before she barrels through their bedroom door.

Quinn is laughing that deep, gut-busting laughter that sounds like it comes from her soul when they land on the bed in a tangled heap. "Don't think it works this way."

Brittany is grinning when she kisses Quinn.

* * *

Brittany doesn't like the term _artificial insemination._

Sounds gross.

She wants a baby, and she knows how they're made – after that little misunderstanding about the stork, she got a thorough education from Miss Holliday – and she knows that, no matter how hard they try, they're going to need an extra person to bring a baby into the world.

Brittany doesn't want that person to be a _stranger._

"So we can use someone from your family," Quinn suggests absently, while she pours over information on the internet, crouched in front of her computer desk. Brittany is fidgety, touching all of the little knick-knacks on Quinn's desk, and the decorative items sprawled across the room. Nice, furnished, put-together rooms like this always make Brittany slightly stir-crazy. She just wants to up-end everything and create a patternless mess. Quinn requires her to leave at least half of the house in some kind of working order, though, so she has to settle with picking things up and putting them back down again.

"I don't have any brothers." Brittany says, frowning. "Besides, that's kinda weird."

"Cousins?" Quinn isn't really paying attention.

"No." Brittany shakes her head. "Maybe an uncle."

Quinn scrunches up her nose. "Old."

Brittany laughs. "I don't want to use any of my uncles, anyway."

"It would be good to use family," Quinn looks at her, but her eyes are still far away. "That way, the baby will be related to me and you."

"I'm going to be the baby's mom, doesn't matter whose DNA it has," Brittany's tone is dismissive. "What about a friend?"

Quinn makes a noise in the back of her throat. "Like who?"

"Somebody from glee?"

Quinn frowns. "I don't think so, Britt."

"Why not?"

"Who are you suggesting we use to father our child? Artie?" Quinn grimaces. "Finn? Puck? No. Hell no."

Brittany thinks, but before she can come up with anything, Quinn's face turns thoughtful.

"We could use Sam," she eyes Brittany up and down, a little critically. "He looks like he could be your brother."

Brittany rolls her eyes. She got enough jokes about that in high school when they were dating. "Do you really want to breasfeed a miniature Trouty Mouth?"

Quinn laughs, shakes her head.

"I think we should use Mike."

That makes Quinn pause.

"Why _Mike?_"

Brittany shrugs. "You said you wanted to use someone related to me. Well, the glee club kids are my family. I want to use one of them. Mike is like the best parts of both of us in one – he's smart, like you, and he loves dancing, like me. It will be perfect."

Quinn doesn't seem convinced. "That will make our baby biracial, Brittany."

"Bi-whatsit?" Brittany tilts her head. "If the baby comes out straight or gay or a real life unicorn, I'll love it, Quinn. Who cares?" she frowns. "How is using Mike's sperm going to-?"

Quinn shakes her head. "Biracial, Brittany. Not.. not _that._" Quinn makes a face as if she doesn't want to imagine this future child of hers partaking in sex of any kind. "Meaning mixed. It will be white and Asian."

"So?"

"People will think that we _adopted_ it." Quinn is getting a little short with Brittany, now.

"And why is that a problem?"

Quinn sighs.

Brittany traces the tiny lines on Quinn's knuckles, watching them as she goes. "We aren't adopting, at least not this time. We're going to make a baby together. I love you, and I love Mike, and I'll love our baby."

Quinn watches the smooth, idle dance of Brittany's fingers over her hands. "Mike does have really good hair."

Brittany smiles.

* * *

Quinn wasn't sure Mike would go for it, but Brittany was.

He didn't hesitate. He even seemed thrilled – he used the word _honored_, which is a big deal with these Asian guys, isn't it? – and Brittany lets Quinn and Mike draw up the paperwork. She doesn't understand most of it, anyway, and she thinks things like that are silly; she knows Mike would never try to take their baby away.

Quinn spent long hours talking to Brittany about what it's like to have a child and give it to someone else to raise, and how it can change you – how it can make you into someone else, someone completely different.

Brittany listened, because she knows that Quinn needs to say these words, but she doesn't tell Quinn that Mike isn't giving a baby away – Mike is just helping them make their own.

Mike is the one who convinces Quinn, finally. Brittany didn't hear that conversation, but she's pleased by it, nonetheless.

Quinn and Mike go to see doctors, respectively, and all of the preparation and talking makes Brittany restless. She wants to have a baby _now._ She's tired of waiting.

"I'll be ovulating in a week. We can start then," Quinn tells her, in an effort to make her patient. "You might miss these days when we have a screaming newborn."

"Maybe so." Brittany smiles, runs the palms of her hands down Quinn's bare arms. "Are you nervous at all?"

"A little bit." Quinn presses her lips together. "I hated being pregnant, before."

"You were beautiful." Brittany kisses the nape of Quinn's neck.

Quinn hums, but doesn't say anything.

"How long has it been for you, anyway, since you..?"

"Since I what?" Quinn blinks.

Brittany smiles, pressing her nose against Quinn's cheek. "Had sex with a man."

"Oh." Quinn raises her eyebrows. "Maybe a year before we got together. Maybe longer. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

Brittany laughs. "Well, if you're ovulating in a week, then that means.."

Quinn doesn't react for a moment, and then she's suddenly whipping around to face Brittany – her expression is one of pure shock. Brittany wears one almost exactly like it, because Quinn moved so fast that Brittany's head is still spinning, a little bit.

"What are you talking about?"

"Making a baby? With Mike?"

"Yes," Quinn's voice is tense, now. "And how do you imagine this is going to happen -?"

Brittany waits a moment, giving Quinn time to clarify the question, but the silence between them drags out. "You've had a baby before, Quinn,"

"Yes," Quinn snaps. "I know. What do you mean, here, Brittany?"

"We're going to make a baby with Mike –"

"Using Mike's _sperm._ His sperm. We aren't going to – _I'm_ not going to have sex with him!"

Brittany stares at Quinn.

"What? How is that possible?"

"Artificial insemination, Brittany!" Quinn almost shouts. "Why else do you think we visited that fertility clinic last week?"

Brittany doesn't really remember much about the clinic except the magazines that had a lot of wildlife on the covers.

"Artificial insemination makes me think of alien babies," Brittany says.

Quinn looks really angry now – and Brittany sort of wants to go hide in their closet until she calms down.

"Have you paid _any_ attention to anything we've been doing over these last few months?" Quinn huffs, gesturing at a pamphlet on the desk. "We have an appointment for Mike to make a deposit, and then –"

"Wait." Brittany blinks. "Is that what the bed with the stirrups was for? Somebody's just gonna – _squirt_ it in you?"

"Yes!" Quinn grimaces. "Don't be so _graphic_, god,"

"That's weird, Quinn," Brittany is skeptical. "I think we should just do it the normal way."

"That's probably the first time I've ever heard you say that, _ever_," Quinn rolls her eyes. "I'd rather have a nurse 'squirt' it into me, than have Mike do it!"

"Come _on_, Quinn, it will be fun." Brittany gets a glint in her eye. "Don't you remember that time we -?"

"Of course I do." Quinn runs a hand through her hair. "That was different. That was Acapulco. You got me drunk."

"You can be drunk this time," Brittany supplies cheerfully.

"That was with a _woman_,"

"I've always wanted to try it with a man." Brittany smiles.

Quinn shakes her head. "I don't think so, Britt. Not this time."

Brittany takes a moment, and she can see the tension in Quinn – she looks like a rubber band pulled taut, only a moment away from snapping. Brittany knows that part of it is nerves, in general, and that Quinn is dealing with a frantic mixture of emotions at the prospect of becoming a mother, again. Brittany knows that Quinn needs reassurance.

She steps forward, cupping Quinn's face with both of her hands, and then presses a small kiss to Quinn's mouth.

"I want to have a baby with you, Quinn. If you want us to do it in a clinic, then that's how we'll do it."

Quinn lets out a breath.

"But I'd rather – I'd rather do it in our bedroom. I'd rather be a _part_ of it. I'd like to help make it happen, if I can," Brittany's smile is gentle.

Quinn looks at Brittany's face for a long, breathless moment, before she huffs. "You think you're cute, don't you?"

Brittany tries to remain neutral.

Quinn scowls at her. "Brittany, I swear to god, if this is just because you want to see Mike naked –"

"That _is_ a benefit," Brittany says solemnly, "but I do want to make our baby like this – it would help me feel more like it's.. more like it's _mine_."

Quinn is silent again before shaking her head. "You're good," she taps Brittany's nose with her finger. "You are good, Brittany Pierce, I'll give you that. You almost had me."

Brittany pokes her bottom lip out. "Pl_eeaaase_,"

Quinn's eyebrows draw together.

"We could just _try_," Brittany grips both of Quinn's hands in her own. "If you hate it for any reason, we can stop."

"What if Mike isn't okay with this, Britt? Did you think of that?"

Brittany raises an eyebrow. "Seriously? You think he's going to say no?"

Quinn throws her hands up.

"We're coming up with a code word."

Brittany bounces on the balls of her feet. "It can be _spaghetti._"

Quinn squints at Brittany incredulously.

"I don't want you to try to re-enact any pornos we've watched, _ever_," Quinn tells her. "No crazy positions or weird dirty talk – I _mean_ it this time, Brittany!"

"Okay, okay!" Brittany stifles a laugh. "Whatever you want, Quinn."

Quinn's face is flushed an adorable shade of red, and Brittany wants to kiss it, but she knows that would only annoy Quinn further.

"I can't believe we're doing this."

Brittany grins, wrapping Quinn in a hug.

"And only _one_ time. Just one time. If it doesn't work, then after that, we use the doctor."

"It'll work," Brittany assures her.

"How can you be so sure?"

Brittany wants to say, _well, it only took one time with Puck, and Mike's sperm have to be faster than his because he moves a lot faster than Puck ever did,_ but she doesn't think that's a very good idea. "I just have a feeling."

Quinn pulls back enough to look up at Brittany's face. "I hope you're right," her nose wrinkles again. "I'd hate to go through all of this for nothing."

Brittany kisses the lines on Quinn's face until they dissolve, and Quinn sighs, letting Brittany draw her close, shifting until their bodies are snug together. They stay like that for a long time, until Brittany finally takes Quinn to their bed, and they fall asleep wrapped up in each other's heartbeats.

* * *

Brittany offers to get a hotel room, but Quinn insists that she's more comfortable conceiving their child in their own home, on their own bed. When the doorbell rings and Quinn freezes where she's sitting on the couch, Brittany bounds to the front door with a quick kiss to her temple.

Mike is still wearing his suit from work and he holds out a bottle of wine, which she takes happily as she leans forward to embrace him. She wishes that she could warn him about how nervous Quinn is and how she might still chicken out, but there's no time before Quinn is coming around the corner into the foyer with her fake smile gleaming on her face.

Quinn opens a bottle of white wine that has already been properly chilled and thanks Mike for his gift. Brittany wants to comment on how the best gift is still to come, but Quinn is already narrowing her eyes in her direction like she knows the words are on the tip of her tongue.

She sits restlessly next to Quinn with their fingers intertwined on the couch while Quinn and Mike talk about all of the boring things they both do at their jobs. Somewhere after the second glass, Mike removes his suit jacket and tugs at the knot of his tie, leaving it loose enough so that he can unbutton the top button.

Brittany studies his features as he talks. She doesn't understand Quinn's concerns with having a biracial baby, when he has such lovely cheekbones, and shiny hair that is pin straight just like her own. His smile is warm and inviting and Brittany thinks that he fits into this family so much more than some numbered bottle at the sperm bank ever could.

She grows bored of the talking quickly and she swallows the last gulp of her wine before she puts down the glass and uses it to grab Quinn's face. She kisses her while Mike is in mid-sentence with his response, and she hears him fall silent in the armchair as her tongue runs along Quinn's lip.

Quinn's kiss is more tentative, almost like she's afraid she's being rude to their guest, but Brittany tries to remind her that this is the main attraction of the evening in the first place. Brittany doesn't push Quinn; she keeps her kisses slow and languid, her one hand on Quinn's jaw, the other still tangled with Quinn's between them.

From behind her turned back, she hears rustling and the couch sinks down as Mike moves from the chair to the couch to join them. He puts a warm hand on Brittany's shoulder, but it isn't invasive or anything. It's just simply there, like a reminder of what is to come.

As Quinn's kisses grow in confidence, she pushes back on Brittany, who ends up on her back with her head in Mike's lap as Quinn settles her weight on top of her. She watches as Quinn's eyes flicker to Mike's, but her face breaks into a nervous smile before she dips down to capture Brittany's lips again.

Mike strokes at Brittany's hair almost absentmindedly as Quinn focuses on Brittany's mouth, her hands planted firmly on either side of Brittany's shoulders. Nobody is pressing things forward and Brittany knows that she has to let Quinn control the pace if this is going to work. She wants to make a baby with this woman far away from any doctor's office and if that means doing things Quinn's way, she's perfectly happy to let it take all night.

The minutes pass and Brittany finally turns her head to break the kiss, causing Quinn to pause above her, her hair falling around her face like a curtain. She can see Mike through the thin veil, but even so it feels like it's a private moment between just the two of them.

"Should we move into the bedroom?" Brittany suggests gently, her hand finding Quinn's waist where her blouse has ridden up.

Quinn's eyes dart from Brittany's, down to her swollen lips. Brittany watches her with a tender look as Quinn sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. It takes a long moment, but finally Quinn nods, her gaze locked tightly on Brittany's like it's the only thing tethering her to the ground.

Quinn sits back on her heels and Mike looks at her curiously, but his hand is still tangled in Brittany's hair and he hasn't even tried to cop a feel while they kissed furiously in his lap. Brittany can see the thoughts swimming across Quinn's face, and she's grateful that Quinn trusts Mike – even if she doesn't know it – as much as she does.

When Quinn stands up and holds her hand out to Brittany, she takes it, though she's perfectly capable of getting up by herself. But Quinn is chivalrous – how she would smile prettily to hear Brittany say that - and Brittany knows she needs the contact of palm-to-palm to keep her from a break down. Mike stands after Brittany's head leaves his lap and he pats the creases that she created on his pants. Brittany can't help but look at where his pants are starting to grow tight. _My baby is in there_, she thinks and it makes her want to giggle at the image, but she doesn't want to upset Quinn, so she holds it in as she leads the way towards their bedroom.

The candles are laid out on surfaces throughout the room and Brittany drops Quinn's hand so that she can light them. Quinn rolls her eyes behind her; though Brittany can't see her do it, she knows that it happens, because she does every time Brittany insists on setting the mood. But this is a special occasion and she believes in Feng Shui. If this is their only chance to do it this way instead of in a sterile room with a turkey baster, Brittany wants to do it right.

Once the candles are lit, she glides back to where Quinn and Mike are still standing by the door and she kisses Quinn. It's more urgent this time and she has to fight to keep her own heart from beating out of her chest when Quinn's hands move up to her face, cradling it gently.

She loves Quinn in a way she's never loved anyone else, and she tries to fit all of that love into the simple movements of her tongue against Quinn's, but it feels hot and impatient – like the tense build up that precipitates an explosion. She breaks the kiss with Quinn and pecks her nose playfully before she reaches out a hand to Mike, forcing him to take a few steps closer to them, closing the gap. She kisses him gently, her other hand finding Quinn's and squeezing it reassuringly. Mike is a pretty good kisser; he's patient and polite (and all Brittany can think about is the last boy she kissed, so many years ago, who smelled like coconut oil and tasted like lime tequila) and Brittany finds herself enjoying it (which isn't much of a surprise). She reaches her free hand around and runs it along his ass, which makes him tighten for a minute before relaxing.

When they break apart, Brittany is glad to see that Quinn's eyes have grown darker, like the opaque shadows that dance along a forest floor, a color somewhere between green and black and gold. She's enjoying this. Brittany can just feel it within her gut that she's going to get her baby tonight.

Mike glances at Brittany like he's asking for permission before he steps into Quinn and tilts her head up to kiss him. Quinn melts into it - Brittany wants to squeal with excitement when Mike's hands fall to rest on her hips, his fingers brushing softly against the exposed skin. Brittany moves forward and slides up against Quinn's back, pushing her hair over her other shoulder so that she can kiss the soft skin that she finds there.

Quinn groans into Mike's mouth when Brittany's teeth scrape against the base of her neck. It convinces Brittany that Quinn is ready to proceed forward and she slips her hands under Quinn's blouse, letting them scratch along her flat stomach before Brittany cups Quinn through her bra.

Quinn's head falls back against Brittany and Brittany takes advantage of the better access to the long column of her neck, which is pale and vulnerable in the candlelight. She slides her hands back down to Quinn's hips and gestures for Mike to take over.

Brittany leans in and kisses Quinn full on the lips. She communicates better with her body than she ever has with actual words and it's a language that Quinn has become fluent in over these past few years. Brittany's kiss is a searing contradiction – of gentleness and heat – and with it, she asks the question, _do you trust me?_ The meat of Quinn's hand against her cheek is enough of an answer.

Brittany pulls away and slips her own shirt over her head. Mike's eyes go wide as Brittany's hand reaches behind her and releases the clasp of her bra. The material falls away and she backs up towards the bed summoning Quinn and Mike with one finger. Mike follows behind Quinn slowly, pulling his own shirt over his head as he does.

Quinn crawls onto the bed and Brittany reaches for the hem of her shirt. Quinn lifts her arms and allows the shirt to be pulled off easily. Brittany lets Mike come up behind Quinn and his hand fumbles for only a second before Quinn's bra slackens and slips down her shoulders.

Brittany reaches forward and pulls Quinn down on top of her, their bare chests meeting. The warmth and nerves mix in the space between them and Brittany feels the pull in her chest that she always does with Quinn - like an invisible thread keeps them connected. This time is different, somehow; the energy that defines the beginning of something new, something that she has only ever felt with Quinn – and it's a private, intimate feeling. Brittany is so caught up in it that she's surprised, for a moment, when she realizes Mike's hands are doing a soft dance along the skin of Quinn's back.

It's with that tiny brush of skin on skin that makes her crave every inch of Quinn and she wastes no time getting them both out of their jeans and panties. She pulls Quinn back down once the clothes hit the floor and wraps her arms around Quinn, holding her as tightly as possible. She wants to move forward with the evening. She wants a baby growing inside of Quinn that she can talk to as she lays with her head in Quinn's lap each night. She wants a nursery with ducks painted on the walls and a stroller by the front door for their family walks. She wants this life - a life she never imagined she would have with Quinn.

"Let's do this," she whispers against the shell of Quinn's ear.

Mike takes the hint to undo his belt and he stands up, letting his pants pool around his ankles. He pulls off his black socks and climbs back onto the bed, looking unsure of what he should do.

"I need you first," Quinn states simply and Brittany nods, willing to do anything to make Quinn more relaxed.

Mike moves back until he's resting back against the headboard. He obviously doesn't want to interrupt any special moment between the girls. Quinn nudges Brittany back so that she's leaning back against his chest. His boxers are soft against her ass and she can feel him straining within them, but he slides back a little more so that he's not pressing his erection into her back. Brittany feels excitement of a different kind curl in her belly – it's an old, familiar quiver; it's the same sort of delighted anticipation one might have prior to riding a roller coaster.

Quinn wastes no time kissing down Brittany's body and settles on her stomach between her legs. The muscles in Brittany's stomach dance as Quinn's mouth starts moving against the warm, wet center of her, teasing with light kisses and faint, hot breaths. That sort of tentative, brushing friction always makes Brittany frantic with need – until her hips are bucking and her fists are twisting the bedsheets, her throat working around tiny, needy groans. Brittany fights to keep her eyes open while Quinn's are locked on hers, holding onto the connection between them. Quinn's hand snakes up her side and moves Mike's much larger ones onto her chest. He participates willingly, rolling her nipple between his fingers while Quinn's tongue moves harder and faster against her, hitting her clit with just the right amount of friction.

Quinn knows all of the secret, clever tricks of Brittany's body – she feels the heat coil, tense and powerful, low in her gut, after an embarrassingly short amount of time. Quinn refuses to break eye contact, holding Brittany in the moment there with her. The warmth of Mike behind her – his chest warm and solid, his legs bracketing the two of them – paired with the intense and concentrated movements of Quinn's mouth against her push Brittany over the edge. Her back arches, and she finally loses the will to focus; she slams her eyelids shut as the pressure finally releases, her bottom lip clamped firmly between her teeth in an effort to muffle her moans.

Quinn wipes a hand across her face before she moves up to kiss Brittany. She can feel Mike's excitement by the way he tries to shift underneath the two of them so that he's not pressing into Brittany, but it's becoming nearly impossible to contain how aroused he is. Brittany doesn't blame him. Even while lying in the boneless heat of afterglow, she knows that they're hot. Just seeing Quinn hovering above her like she is – naked, with hair a wild mess – makes Brittany's belly tighten. She can't imagine what it's doing to poor Mike.

Brittany knows that he's been more than patient and that it's really time. She kisses Quinn once more, firmly, before she pulls back, sweeping her eyes over Quinn's.

"How do you want to do this?" she asks simply. Quinn's cheeks redden and she looks away from Brittany and Mike.

"God, I haven't done this since -"

"Sweetie, you love being in all kinds of positions with me when we -" Brittany starts, but Quinn's embarrassed glare makes her stop mid-sentence. "Why don't you just lie down and let us do the rest?"

Quinn seems agreeable to this plan, and she rolls over so that her head is propped up on a couple of pillows. Brittany looks over to see Mike adjusting himself in his boxers, though it's impossible to hide his excitement. She pulls at the waistband until he springs free and he helps by kicking them down the rest of his legs. Quinn's eyes are wide at the sight of Brittany's hand wrapping around his shaft and stroking it until he's completely hard in her palm.

Brittany, seeing the apprehension on Quinn's face, leans forward and kisses her, reassuring her with her lips that things are going to go as planned. They are going to get their future together with this little half-Asian genius baby.

Quinn relaxes by degrees, with Brittany's mouth against hers, and Mike moves closer, allowing Brittany to stroke him as she kisses down Quinn's neck and over her collarbone, continuing in a hot trail until she's rolling her tongue over a stiff nipple. Quinn's eyes squeeze shut and Brittany moves down, letting Mike take over himself while she focuses on worshipping Quinn's body.

Her mouth moves along Quinn's skin, kissing along the faint stretch mark scars from her first pregnancy, allowing her tongue to tickle along Quinn's pelvic bone. Brittany inhales Quinn's scent only a moment before her tongue is lapping out, against Quinn's swollen lips, and the taste is intoxicating – it's uniquely _Quinn; _earthy, feminine, and exotic.

When Quinn is writhing on the bed, her hair going wild on the pillow, her fists clenched in the sheets, Brittany stops and moves up so that she's straddling Quinn's hips. Mike takes his cue and moves himself in between Quinn's legs. His fingers find her clit and he rubs it gently as Quinn gazes up at Brittany.

"Britt, I'm not sure about this," Quinn whispers, muscles coiling with tension.

"It's just me and you, okay?" Brittany tells her. "It's just us in our bed making our baby."

Quinn bites her lip and nods. Brittany moves forward, giving Mike enough room to move close enough that his tip is touching Quinn. She leans down and kisses Quinn with everything she has and she feels Mike press gently inside of her, stilling until Quinn's muscles relax, her legs finally falling apart. She kisses Quinn as he pulls out and thrusts back in with a little more force.

It's different, not being the one giving Quinn the pleasure, but she kisses her and runs her fingers along stiff nipples while Mike moves in and out behind her, his fingers pressing against her clit and making her back arch despite Brittany's weight on her stomach. Brittany can feel the moist heat of Quinn's breath against her face, and the small, whimpery noises she murmurs make everything inside of Brittany white hot and scorching – Brittany's own hips undulate to the rhythm set by Quinn's body moving in tandem with Mike's.

Brittany feels the air strangle in her lungs when Quinn clenches, freezing, and the high-pitched, breathy vibrations begin in her chest – she wants to hold Quinn and pull her close, anticipating the way that she'll thrash and move. Instead, she simply watches; she watches as Quinn comes undone, her face screwing up in an expression that is caught in the crevice between pain and pleasure. It's fierce – she looks almost angry – and the force with which she clutches the blankets beneath them makes Brittany's body throb with want.

Quinn comes before Mike, her body shuddering, and he grunts shortly after, his hips pressing him as deeply into her as he can as his legs shake with the force of his orgasm. In the quiet stillness, Brittany wonders – did they make their baby here tonight? It feels strange to imagine creating a human this way, when the echoes of her own pleasure still vibrate in her fingertips, and the sounds of Mike's breathing are harsh against her ears.

Mike slips out of Quinn and grabs his boxers to wipe himself off. He gets off the bed wordlessly, offering them a bashful smile, and walks into the en suite bathroom, leaving Brittany to cuddle up against Quinn's side alone.

It feels quiet and empty without him, somehow – though Brittany did everything she could to help Quinn forget he was even there, she misses his presence. Part of Brittany wants to call Mike back into the bedroom, and pull him close; part of her wants to feel his body move against hers – but she knows that _this_ isn't about _that_. Brittany isn't used to ignoring those kinds of desires, and – usually – she simply wouldn't. But Quinn presses her face against Brittany's shoulder, and her lips are parted, sucking in air; Brittany brushes the hair away from Quinn's face, to press soft, feather-light kisses along her nose and cheekbones, and she knows that _this_ – right here, with Quinn – is much more important than _that._

A few more moments tick by in silence, before a thought occurs to Brittany –

"Hey! What if it leaks out? Quinn! Do a headstand!"

"Brittany, no – what are you doing? _Stop that!_"

"This is _important!"_

"Britt – I swear to god _– stoppit!_ I don't need to do a headstand – oh, for Christ's sake!"


End file.
